Your Favourite Photo of 2008

So many memorable shots. Keep 'em coming.

Alex

So many amazing photos, it's overwhelming. This thread is great!

I had the best year of diving in my life, Red Sea with Subal and ULCS friends, Tawali PNG with Ned and Anna Deloach and Paul Humann and 5 months in Bonaire. What a life, I have to kick myself sometimes. Needless to say got to work on my skills, and have a bunch of keepers this year. But for this thread I picked a personal favorite for a couple reasons. I never shot nudi's before, "too easy," but now I know. What an amazing range of sizes, shapes and colors. I also never shot in the muck, so of course now I'm addicted. I'm thinking of filling the swimming pool with silt and see what grows. This was one of many I saw in PNG, and of course this is how I found it; no nudibranchs were harmed in the making of this photo. This guy captures all of the above and sums up my year.

Happy New Year!!

Nikon d200, Subal housing, single Ike DS125, 105mm, f/22 at 1/125th, minor adjustments in Aperture

What a 'Happy' chap.....

What an amazing group of shots. Keep them coming.

This is my favorite of the year as it was on a Galapagos trip that included many firsts for me.

First Whale Shark

First time diving with large schools of big predators.

First time I've had a playful sea lion try to pull a fin off my foot and blow bubbles in my face.

First time I was able to dispell my long time claim that ' I don't get seasick '

Our DM (in the photo) was swimming along beside this guy and signalled me to stop. He proceeded to turn it in my direction and it actually swam right over me within a couple of feet.

Thanks to all the fine Wetpixelians for sharing their knowledge and help this year.

I dont now

May be this

or may be this

or this

or this

I dont now, please, help me

Happy New Year 2009

Carlos, you very clearly do not need any help.

Happy New Year,

Steve

My little contribution for the topic.

Happy New Year for all.

Best regards,

Tigershark

Hey guys - all of these shots are great. Nice work folks! Enjoying this.

The day after my sister's wedding I was doing a deep dive in Savu Savu in Fiji (KoroSun Dive). On the safety stop I was joined by a lovely school of curious bat fish. It made it very memorable

Happy new year for 2009 wet pixies - Im looking forward to more inspiration and learning

PS: My New Years resolution is to get an image or story "printed" in a dive magazine in 2009.

Thank you all for the good stories and the very inspiring photos. I had a creative idea and got into the pool with my friend the "stunt fish". I shot a series of photos on the topic "freedom is an illusion", and received a lot of positive remarks from both divers and non divers.

It is the first time I have tried to create some more artistic underwater photos, and I'm happy with the result. It would be nice to get some feedback from you guys.

It is very hard to pick one photo as my best this year. This year I had the opportunity to dive a lot in Norway. To me, it is a wild and unspoilt beauty to dive the temperate waters on the west coast and in the arctic part of Norway. I hope to see more pictures from temperate waters from fellow Wetpixel members in 2009.

Definitely this year's greatest diving experience: diving with 10-15 stingrays mating in the Maldives

I was fortunate enough to do more diving this past year than in previous years. And, the best part of all was that I got a chance to dive in Indonesia for the very first time. Selecting one image may have been easier in the past, but this year it was especially difficult. But the image that is my favorite was one taken in Tulamben in Bali.

Jeff Mullins, with whom I took an underwater photo course, pointed me in the direction of this Coleman Shrimp. Fortunately, it all seemed to come together on this shot.

I hope everyone gets to capture many wonderful images in 2009. I look forward to seeing them here in this thread at the end of the year

Ellen

I dont now, please, help me

Carlos,

Maybe this will help you:

"Photo" = 1

"Photos" = more than 1

Great shots, though.

Here's my offering - November 2008 at Tulamben, Bali. Mantis Shrimp with clutch of eggs. No post editing yet.

Nikon D2X, Subal housing, 105mm Nikon lens, Inon Z22 Ringflash, F18@250.

more on www.scubasnaps.org

Cheers,

Chris.

Well. I meant to do this a couple of weeks ago, but have been distracted by a nationwide outbreak of coughs, snuffles and other diving-incompatible symptoms (not that I have been "dry": I have done four dives in water of less than 5 Celsius, 'though none were terribly attractive).

My favourite, but too reminiscent of Alex's post 9 pages ago:

So, in the spirit of cheating, I offer this, a shot that I have wanted to take ever since I first read about the limestone fascination of Palau:

And, in parting, a real cheat, being a composite of two images from the same (cold!) dive before the holidays:

Happy New Year!

Tim

Hope I'm not too late, but here are my favorites. Both were taken on my editorial trip for DivePhotoGuide.

Portrait of a blue ribbon eel in Bali

Bumphead parrotfish in Borneo

I'm going to cheat and submit 3 not good shots, but is a tale of 2 sharks that made 2008 memorable - Diving one of my favorite sites in Key Largo, at a site called Anchor Chain, I noticed the tail of a nurse shark sticking out of a large reef. I moved closer to get a better look. The shark was half in the rock with just its tail sticking out, its head stuck way up in the reef, just sleeping or resting or whatever it is that nurse sharks do when they stop swimming. I took a couple of shots, but you know, how interesting is a sleeping shark's tail? I moved around the rock, looking for a shot of something else.

As luck would have it, another nurse shark swooped right over my head at a pretty fast clip, and it made a wide circle of the rock. Yep, it surprised the bejesus out of me and so yep, I missed the shot. I figured if I stuck around it would do another pass maybe and sure enough, the shark came back and did another sweep of the rock. This time I got a shot. It kept circling a few more times, I got a few more shots, and then he (assuming it is a "he") swam over to the hole occupied by the other shark, and just stopped, laid down in the sand and then tried to wiggle into the hole with the other one.

I don't know whether it was a male interested in a female, or just wanted to share the same cozy spot the other shark had, but there wasn't enough room for both of them.

Definitely not my best shots of 2008 but definitely one of my most memorable dives of the year.

I haven't been on this forum in a long time, but my 2009 resolution is to get back in the water more often and WITH MY CAMERA!!

I've had a couple of bad years diving. In 2007 I decided to take Deco training with an instructor that absolutely killed my love of diving - couldn't teach his way out of a bubble!! And made everyone feel incompetent. And in 2008 a friend/dive buddy died at the surface - pre-existing medical condition that wasn't known about.

Needless to say, diving hasn't been at the top of my list lately. But I did manage to get to Cozumel for a week and I have to admit that there's nothing like a newbie to help you see what is so awesome about the underwater world! They get excited about sand for god's sake!!

So here's Carmen, who asked me to take a photo that would include her new dive watch so she could show folks at home. Thanks to Carmen for helping me see what I was used to in a whole new light.

And then I remembered the wonderful peacefulness of it all - just the deep blue. Not a great photo, but one that speaks to me.

Qinling lenok （Brachymystax lenok tsinlingensis）

Wow, a Lenok Trout - very rare! And what a beautiful shot Kevin - great.

James

This is one which typifies my 10 year old son's 'coming of age' as as a competent diver and photographer. His Xmas present wish list included a Canon G9, Ike housing, a suite of INON glass and a pair of Z-240's. Who was I to deprive him of such discerning ambition? His next trip is St. John's and the northern wrecks...