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The 31st annual Beneath the Sea show kicked off this weekend to another bustling and energetic crowd.
As always, DivePhotoGuide was there to cover the show from a photographers and videographers perspective. The DPG booth was the place to be for underwater imagery. One of the "cooler" elements of our booth was a converted old Nikonos V turned mystical fountain. Now that's art!
Divers from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and even further, flocked to the Meadowlands Convention Center in NJ to feel like kids in a candy store filled with dive goodies.
The dive industry dazzled flowing crowds with a fantastic expo floor, seminars, workshops, a film festival and more. You gotta give it up to these guys - they put on a great show for all.
The recently formed New York Underwater Photographic Society (NYUPS) welcomed visitors to the show. The floor was abuzz about the upcoming inaugural meeting on April 12th.
The founding board of the NYUPS: Jason Heller, Wendy Heller, Larry Cohen, Pasquale Pascullo.
Stan Waterman was the "Legends of the Sea" guest of honor this year.
Hey Stan - is that a new mustache or a Brazilian swimsuit model growing out of your face?
Rand from Fantasea shows off the new housing for the Nikon D-40. Currently Fantasea is the only manufacturer making a housing for the D-40, which is soon-to-be a very popular camera.
The Adventure H2O booth had a nice tribute set up for Indonesia diving pioneer Larry Smith who sadly passed away just days prior to the show.
Shaun and Beth Tierney published a nice tribute to Larry on DPG during the show as well.
Annie Crawley presented several seminars throughout the weekend. Her children's books and instructional DVD's have been very successful and her seminars were quite popular.
Annie is a passionate and entertaining speaker. She even dresses the part for her seminars - now that's dedication!
I've been meaning to play around with the Light & Motion D-200 housing and finally got the chance. Pretty cool stuff. Light & Motion is the only hosuing on the market with electronic versus manual controls.Of course the housing comes with an associated price tag of approximately $4,500, trumping Seacam as the most expensive housing on the market.
The man of the weekend - Armand "Zig" Zigahn.
Zig is the head honcho, top tomato, commander in chief, and Executive Director of Beneath The Sea.
Wyland, always a strong presence at BTS, hands the paint brush to the lovely Wendy.
In a matter of hours Wyland transformed a blank canvas into a beautiful black and white scene of a pair of Dolphins and a Turtle hanging inside a cavern. Truly amazing to watch the art born out of his hands and mind.
Lorenza Sloss, Wendy Heller, Doug Sloss, Jason Heller.
Doug recently released a fairly amazing digital editting instructional DVD (Underwater Photo Workshop) and will be a featured speaker, along with Ethan Gordon, on April 12th at the inaugural meeting of the NYUPS.
Fred Dion from Underwater Photo Tech was promoting a special weekend of underwater photography presentations and workshops in New Hampshire, April 20th and 21st. For more information, visit Underwater Photo Tech's website.
Mauricio Handler spends time helping a customer learn about Aquatica housings.
It was great to see so many divers buying thier first set of underwater photo or video equipment. There's a new generation out there, and they're coming soon to a reef near you.
I got to spend some time with Dave Reid from Ultralight Control Systems. They are releasing a new set of bouyancy arms within the next few weeks. Dave explained to me how customizable this system will be. The 2" wide arms will come in various sizes and configurations to help calculate exactly the arms you need to keep a specific system neutrally bouyant underwater.
INON has been picking up steam lately. The introduction of thier new housings last year marked a departure from being known as a strobe-only manufacturer. The new housings are currently only made for select Canon SLR's, but the line will eventually expand.
Steve models a complete INON rig for us, complete with 4 strobes.
Evan Kovacs is the camerman for John Chatterton & Richie Kohler, of Deep Sea Detectives fame. They jointly launched the DVD magazine Dive Portal DVD, and recently released issue #2.
Evan has recently been diving on the Alvin submersible with Woods Hole and shooting with the likes of Emory Kristof. Evan is on the path to be one of the next famous camerman shooting for television and film.
Evan will be giving a presentation to the NYUPS later this year.
Attendees take in the 2007 BTS photo competition winners.
Again, congrats to our own Pasquale Pascullo who took home first in the Macro category and an honorable mention for the Animal Behavior category.
Donald Tipton was on site signing books and prints. Donald is a great photographer and is featured in the DPG galleries. I even have one of his black and white prints hanging at home.
Ryan from Reef Photo & Video shows off the new Sea Tools housing for the Canon Digital Rebel. It's such a compact and sleek housing, suited for the smallest digital SLR on the market. After speaking with Ryan at the last couple of shows, I've started to really like the Sea Tools line.
The Ocean Blue Divers crew rolled into BTS with at least 20 or 30 members sporting the new OBD t-shirts and making a splash. This was the first year for Ocean Blue Divers (formerly NYC Divers) at BTS and they made thier mark. Congrats guys.
Days earlier, Amos Nachoum, Larry Cohen and I presented at a special event for Ocean Blue Divers called "Planning Your Shot". Over 100 anxious NYC underwater shutterbugs attended and enjoyed great food, cheap drinks, good company and 3 great presentations.
Stay tuned for more from day 2 tomorrow!
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