Franco Banfi Photography

Nature’s Best Photography Magazine has announced the winners of the 2011 Ocean Views Photography Contest. Among more than 5,000 images received for the competition, the jury has chosen to award the overall winner at one of my images, showing a beluga whale. I took this image last year in White Sea, Karelia region, Russia.  A second picture of two Longnose hawkfish inside a seafan was highly honored.
The winning images are displayed in the Nature’s Best Photography Ocean Views 2011 Awards gallery that has been published in the Spring/Summer print edition. Additionally, the selected images may also appear in the Spring issue of Alert Divers magazine.
“When it comes to taking pictures in cold temperatures under the ice, many factors must be considered: light, clarity of the water, lens choice, strobes, ISO. I decided for a fast ISO, to get some natural light in the frame, and the fisheye lens, considering the size of the subject and the particles in the water. I used two strobes with long arms to capture the playful creature.”

Scuba diver and beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas). Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II; 15mm f/2.8 fisheye lens; 1/125 sec at f/5.6; ISO 200; 2 x strobes at half power.

Albatros Top Boat.

(more…)

This year the group was bigger, 10 persons from different places on Earth : China, England, Israel, Mexico, Poland, South Africa joined the Photo Expedition. All with the same interest : to discover a new and exacting destination, new people and cultures, diving under the thick ice of the White Sea, diving with beluga whales, improving the photographic knowledge and  -of course – have fun. We spent one day in Ruka, where we enjoyed dog sledging through the wild forest, where everything is covered with snow.
The following day we wrapped up and got ready for the long journey to Russia. We loaded 2 buses and one trawler and we headed to the borders. Somebody was checked more carefully, till a big boss arrived to check properly the passport and said “da, carascho”. We lost one extra hour but everybody was happy to be in Russia ; we went ahead to the Arctic Circle. The trip was long ; we finally arrived to the place where we left the main road and drove for the last 30km. About this last transfer , we had to board a truck that is fit to drive in the snowy road. When we arrived at destination, we met part of the staff. A small briefing before dinner and then we were called to go out to photograph the aurora borealis. People was very excited and we went onto the frozen White Sea with tripods and cameras, trying to get the pictures. Different setting, ISO, shutter speeds.
First day on the White Sea. The people that didn’t have the ice diving certification started their course with Katya, the local instructor. They were introduced to the technique and the organization of the ice diving. After the course, everybody was able to communicate through the rope language and we were ready to leave towards the ice camp.
At the ice camp we were divided by groups, each one in one majna (the Russian word for “hole in the ice”). Every one experienced the first ice diving with his buddy or with a local instructor. Andreas had some water inside the housing after having waited to use it all day. It resulted in being not a big problem : when he opened the housing, he found a piece of ice instead of water. The water that entered the housing, froze.
For the next four days we enjoyed a wonderful weather. During these days everything happened, dry gloves went unhooked, neck seal broke, some cameras were not working properly. One of the divers checked the water temperature by plunging through the hole without closing the zip of the dry suit.  He jumped back immediately to the iced-surface , after he found the water was really too cold. He received a new nickname “Wet P.” in comparison with the “Dry P.”, this made it more easy to identify the two P.
Yuan had to be whisked off for some rather more demanding training by Dr. Mikhail Sofonov, in preparation for his upcoming North Pole dive expedition.
Last, but by no means least, Joanne became an instant celebrity : the Russian TV station has interviewed her for three times.  She has to request a huge amount of consulting fee from the TV station for her invaluable contribution to its Ice Diving Program, … this request is pending…

Everyday, in the evening, was the time of Underwater Photography Workshop, I introduced the guests to the different kind of photography: macro, wide angle and with big animals (in this case the beluga whakes), one evening was also dedicated to the postproduction, learning some trics with software programs.
The last day of diving. We were greeted from a shy sun, maybe it was sorry because tomorrow we had to leave. The group was divided in two. Some went diving with the beluga and returned with lots of pictures. Joanne went to film the beluga one more while Dafne did some more snorkelling and Wet P. did his last dive and then headed back to the centre for a nice walk. Andreas and I experienced another dive site : the bottom was plenty of soft coral and anemones.
Yuan went to finish his North pole preparation, one more dive and a theory section with Mikael, to discuss the last details.
Everyone was back at the centre for washing equipment and start packing, before meeting in the dining room where Shawoen gave a glass of whisky (…or probably more than one glass) to everybody to party together with the group and the local staff for the beautiful week. Everybody was happy, talking about the new experiences, changing pictures and mails address. At a certain point somebody found also the time to have a banja.
Early weak up and time to say hallo to our friends at Arctic Circle. At 4.00 AM we were ready to leave … except Wet P. and Dry P.. Where were they? We went to look for them knocking at the door and receiving a sleepy answer “… YES … coming …”. They were recovering from last night’s party and banja with the local staff. Wet P. was the first to join the group, while Dry P. was more late because he had some difficulty to squeeze all his clothes in the suitcase. We loaded the truck and we left for the long journey. One and half hour later we met with our bus drivers and we moved our luggage on the buses before leaving to Finland.
We had a good drive till the border . This time Yuan was stopped for control by the Finnish customer : they were not sure if he needed a special Visa to enter Finland. Luckily the control was quite fast and we had even the time to visit the local duty free.
We headed then to the airport where we arrived one and half hour later. In time to shoot the group’s photo, check in our heavy luggage and met inside, at the buffet, for café and sandwiches.

I am back home after the two Waterproof photographic expeditions to Antarctica. A month spent aboard the Polar Pioneer : almost 4000 kilometrers of rough sea, we crossed four times the famous Drake Passage. The last crossing we found strong wind, force 10, that have slowed our arrival in Ushuaia.
During the two expeditions, the weather was not very forgiving. The first two weeks we’ve seen the sun for a few hours, while in the second trip we have had better luck : a whole day of sun and a couple of days with some decent hours. We got every kind of rain, snow and wind. During the first expedition, I could test the waterproof durability of my Canon cameras (1D MKIV and 5D MKII) and lenses, often completely wet during shore excursions. With these conditions, the Dryzone 200 backpack from Lowepro was very helpful ; it is great in keeping dry the equipment, also the Energizer Lithium batteries were very efficient in this environment. Even if the weather conditions were poor, we sailed up to the Antarctic Peninsula -crossing the Antarctic Circle- and reached latitude 66 ° 50′S.

During our trip we visited many interesting places. We visited some sites with abundance of wildlife, and others characterized by the beauty of the landscapes. To name only a few : Deception Island, Detaille Island, Cuverville Island, Aitcho Island, Lemaire Channel, Pleneau, Prospect Point. In each trip we have visited Port Lockroy, where four ladies live during the summer months. They are involved in the maintenance of the base and they manage a little shop. Port Lockroy is a post office where you can send your postcards. This year the ladies have already stamped 70,000 postcards.
In these weeks we have seen and photographed many animals living in the peninsula, several seals, Weddel, Crabeater, Leopard and Elephant sea. About the birds, the more common are : Gentoo penguins, Adelie and Chinstrap, cormorants, albatrosses and skuas.
We got some dives, led by dive master Martin. In general we didn’t find very clear water; there was a kind of algae blooming and we did a couple of dives with visibility of less than two metres. The diving at their best offered many sea stars, including Labidiaster annulatus (a huge star with many arms), sea anemones of considerable size, nudibranchs, giant isopods and some fishes. In Antarctica there are only 200 species of fishes.
One of the best dive we made was around an iceberg, with water fairly clear; it was interesting to observe the forms and the shapes of the underwater-side of the ice.
During the cruises I did some presentations of photos taken in Antarctica in my previous trips. Almost all of the participants had at least one compact photo camera. My pleasure was also to give advices and suggestions about the use of their cameras.
Every evening I was available at the bar for questions and the review of all the photos that customers took during the day.

At the coming Boot Show in Duesseldorf,  there will be an area of 300 square metres devoted to underwater photography’s exhibitors and an exclusive show entitled “Underwater Pixel World”. This will be staged in Hall 4, directly alongside the traditional diving sports exhibition area in Hall 3.

Last year this venture was only a photo exhibition, but  now it is bearing fruit.  In fact, in 2011 numerous  regular exhibitors -whose goods include cameras, casings and accessories for underwater cameramen and photographers- are grasping this opportunity to present themselves in this segment as well. They will be joined by a number of first-time exhibitors of the photo industry but, most of all, by a gallery with presence and the works of internationally acclaimed underwater photographers and the shots of  amateurs’ photo competition “Topshot”. This gallery will give a definite artistic touch at all the Hall 4 . It has been organized by Boot in cooperation with the divers’ network taucher.net.

Some of my works will also be presented there and I will be at the Boot Show from Saturday 22 to  Wednesday 26 . During these days I will even do some lectures from 12:50 to 13:10 hrs. It will be a pleasure to meet you there .