Home > News > Eilat Epson Red Sea Competition 2009: Day 4

Eilat Epson Red Sea Competition 2009: Day 4

By Matt J. Weiss, November 16, 2009 @ 12:35 AM (EST)

By Keri Wilk

Day 4 (November 12)

The clock was ticking louder than ever today with just hours remaining in the competition, and it was pretty obvious that most participants weren’t satisfied with their images yet. I’ve come to realize, however, that achieving ultimate satisfaction with a set of images in a shoot-out like this is really more of a myth than a plausible goal. There’s always going to be some aspect of your images that you wish you could change which wasn’t immediately noticeable in your camera’s LCD display while shooting – the saying “hindsight is 20/20” rings particularly true. In any case, all you can do is shoot to the best of your ability, and cross your fingers!

Competitor not very pleased with results after a night dive tonight

Dissatisfaction may have been present, but you certainly couldn’t tell at first glance – nothing but smiling faces, laughter, and group conversations could be seen/heard throughout the day at the Manta Dive Center. The atmosphere was made especially rich by the good sportsmanship that was displayed by rival competitors… honest opinions, constructive criticism, and a willingness to share photo secrets was very refreshing to see – especially in a competition where there is so much on the line!

Competitors sharing images with eachother

Arch enemies, Mark Fuller and Amir Stern, needed their wives/girlfriends as a buffer between them for this photo, otherwise there might have been trouble.

As usual, beer, snacks, and live music materialized precisely at 5pm, and was followed soon after by dozens of people who capitalized off of Pilo’s and David Vered’s generosity (GM of Red Sea Sports Club).

One-man band

By this time, some of the competitors decided it was in their mental health’s best interest to just throw in the towel, put the camera gear aside, and enjoy the evening full of great company and spirits. Others forged ahead, doing another 2 nights dives before the 11:59:59 buzzer.

I call this one “Beer goggles”? Bad-um-chhh.

Jury member, Osku Puukila, happily poses for a shot with his beer. Not shown in photo: a second beer in his other hand.

Once the crowd died down, Pilo invited me, a few other journalists, and the 11 ‘Fish of the Year” contestants to dinner. Amongst the group was the newest jury member, Brian Pitkin, and his wife Linda (who are both highly accomplished photographers). It was Brian’s birthday tonight, and we celebrated it by cracking a few more bottles of wine, and getting the cooking staff to toss together a makeshift birthday cake. Happy birthday, Brian!

Ravi, Anna, and Pilo… hard at work!

Alberto and Paula

After dinner, I realized that I hadn’t downloaded my images yet, and the midnight deadline was only a couple of hours away… so I made my way back to the dive center, went upstairs to the downloading area (which has almost been manned around the clock since the competition started), and pulled out a couple of cards to download. Within moments of dragging the files over to be copied, I was sound asleep at the computer.

Me doing what I do best (photo: Michel Braunstein)

This may seem like a pointless photo to include, but it really is indicative of how much physical and mental energy an event like this demands… thankfully the competition is officially over now, so everyone will get to sleep a little more – that is, if they’re not overcome with anxiety from having to wait for the judges decisions! Images choices must be submitted before 10am tomorrow (something I haven’t done yet), so maybe there won’t be as much sleep as I anticipated...

Almost forgot… here are a couple of shots from the two dives that I squeezed in today: