Your Favourite Photo of 2009

This is my favourite image from 2009. It's my oldest girl Engla, seven years old, snorkeling with Lotta on a reef in the Egyptian Red Sea. We did a story about adventures in the Red Sea with children for a Scandinavian family magazine and this made it to the cover. I shot it with my old, trustworthy, D200 and a Nikon 10,5/2.8 fisheye. Forground lit with two diffused Inon Z240:s; ISO 100, f13, 1/90.

cheers

This is not my best but it's a favorite from my favorite dive of the year for several reasons. I shoot Great Lakes shipwrecks almost exclusively. I'd never shot anything other than wide angle underwater. This year when I got my new housing I also purchased a flat port so I could play around with my 60mm. I never realized how challenging it would be in the mental sense. Shooting close-up or macro is a completely different way of seeing underwater than shooting wide. The first 10 minutes of the dive I felt helpless, swimming around not knowing what to shoot. My dive buddy finally pointed out a flamingo tongue snail for me and it was one of those "aha" moments. Now I knew where to look and for what. It gave me a start. This one I found near the end of my dive almost directly under the dive boat. But the problem with shooting two strobes dead on was it looked so flat. After a few minutes it dawned on me to remove the left strobe and position it behind and to the side to give the whole image some dimension. Like I said, it's not great or anything that hasn't been done before but it was a wake up for me to look and think differently underwater. And I had a blast doing an 86 minute dive in 80 degree water shooting my 60mm instead what I'm used to - a 15 minute bottom time in 40 degree water shooting wide in 25 feet of viz. Sorry this is long winded but hey, that's why I like this image.

Canon 40D, Canon 60mm, Subal housing and flat port, dual Ike DS-125's

I'm still slogging through hundreds of photos from 2009, but this is one I like, as others have said before me, because it is different from what I usually shoot, being larger than a pea, with a lens I don't often use (60mm), and at night at TK2 in Lembeh when I was being barraged by a massive school of shrimpfish, probably attracted by my mask light! It was all I could do to swat them away...it was like a swarm of locusts...very creepy. So, I am pretty happy that it turned out after all; I like the pattern and colour.

Cheers,

Marli

it was pretty hard to choose. Diving this year was very different.

First time I dived in fresh water... but...

my favourite photo is squid couple dancing in the night.

I tried to do it for two years.

Indonesia, Lembeh. Canon 5D. Canon 100mm macro, Nexus, Inon 240x2. Different type of lighting(diode/lamp) affected the color of squid.

sorry for my english

What a great set of images so far. This was my first year shooting a DSLR when I began to feel like I had a clue what I was doing. The first got the most views on Flickr, My first with over a 1000. Thanks Alex!

and this one was my first ever competition entry, and it won a prize in the Visions in the Sea show to benefit the Shark trust.

"Can't catch me" taken on my first trip with Jim Abernethy and the crew.

Thanks for all the help guys and gals!

Cheers,

Steve

This school of akule, aka bigeye scad, is my favorite shot of 2009. It was taken on a shore dive in Kona with a Tokina 10-17. The school is ~40 ft wide and it must include thousands of the foot long fish. When agitated, the school adopted fast changing amoeba-like shapes. Later when calmed down, the school compressed into a tight ball as shown in this shot. It was an amazing day.

I didnt do alot of diving this year, so ill cheat my favorite photo this year was taken at millenium park chicago ill usa d300, hand held at dusk. I apologize to steve in advance

Here are mine:

Male Leatherback in the open ocean way offshore Florida (Gulf Stream). Taken with a D700, 16mm, 6 inch dome port, 1.5 Kenko Teleconverter, Aquatica housing and two Inon Z220s. This turtle is one of four seen and photographed in one unbelievable day. This magnificent animal is about 8 ft. long and almost 9 ft. from flipper tip to flipper tip. Shortly after the photo he tried to bite the camera and I had to push it off with my hand.

Young boy in Bali playing with a home-made jukung on the beach at sunset. Taken with a D2x, flash, 16mm on the last day of shooting for my new book, Wild Waters.

Very best wishes to all for 2010.

Michael Patrick O'Neill

www.mpostock.com

I had to post two because I couldn't decide

Both taken in Bali at Tulamben, the snells window and sunburst was taken in April and the grouper in November

Two Fantastic trips.

....................... Nikon D300 f13 @ 1/320 60mm ..................................................... Nikon D300 f8 @ 1/320 Tokina 10-17........................

Nige Wade

One of my best photos

I love it because I dream about it before dive and it was realize few minutes later.

Set with G9 + UWL100 + Z240 / SB105

This was really hard for me as I've been lucky to do a lot of great diving this year. This one's not my best, but it brings back all the memories of the Sardine Run earlier this summer. What an adventure!

BTW, I count 16 dolphins and 3 sharks in the pic

Best wishes to all for a happy and prosperous 2010!

Phil

Great images!!

This is mine:

The tail of Orange-lined Triggerfish. This was take in Tulamben,Bali. I love the simple beauty of this shot.

Happy New Year!!

I never found a friendlier great barracuda that was willing to pose for my camera like this one before.

He was a good 1.5m long.

There are a lot of great photos posted. Here is one of mine that I like, both for the shot itself, and also for the memories it brings. It was taken at Pescador Island near Moalboal in the Philippines during a great trip I took with my wife and son during the summer of 2009.

Every year or so Ningaloo Reef/Exmouth Gulf has a population explosion of red jellyfish for two or three weeks. This year we were blessed with clear water during the same period and I got several dives in with them before they disappeared again. This is my favourite, I call it Rocket Jelly:

Taken with Canon 50D, Tokina 10-17 @ 10mm and 2 x Inon Z240 strobes.

This is my favourite picture from 2009 ,this was take in Baltic sea until very nice diving

it was pretty hard to choose. Diving this year was very different.

First time I dived in fresh water... but...

my favourite photo is squid couple dancing in the night.

I tried to do it for two years.

Indonesia, Lembeh. Canon 5D. Canon 100mm macro, Nexus, Inon 240x2. Different type of lighting(diode/lamp) affected the color of squid.

sorry for my english

This is a stunningly beautiful image! You mention a diode lamp,was this your flashlight which stimulated the colors. I presume the actual image was captured with the Inons.

Don't worry about your english, the image speaks for itself.

There are plenty of excellent photos in this thread. Here's my effort: a well-placed frogfish that has taken on the rusty coloration of its shipwreck home.

This is my favorite image and underwater moment of 2009, I think we both had the same expression! Taken in Lembeh with a Canon 350D in an Ikelite housing and single 125 strobe.

I ummed and ahhhed about which photo to put in here

This photo was from the first underwater model shoot I ever did and It turned out surprisingly well. Also, the model is a dear friend of mine who's subsequently moved back to Sweden (otherwise of the world from me) so its also a nice momento of the friendship.

Cheers

Cal