Your Favourite Photo of 2009

[jkane 0]

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.

[vazuw 1]

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

Edited December 28, 2009 by vazuw

[Michael 0]

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

[Nige Wade 0]

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

[buceo 2]

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

 

[philsokol 1]

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

[JennyHuang 2]

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!!

[ssra30 0]

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.

 

[edpdiver 21]

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.

 

[Gudge 52]

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.

Edited December 28, 2009 by Gudge

[DULMEN 0]

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

[loftus 42]

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.

[Simon Rogerson 0]

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.

[Chet King 0]

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.

 

[Cal 5]

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

[escape 84]

Happy New Year!!!

 

from Nusa Penida, Bali, Indonesia

Edited December 29, 2009 by escape

[aquaplane 0]

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.

 

Now THAT is a freaking cool froggie and backdrop!

Edited December 29, 2009 by aquaplane

[tri4funnow 0]

It was the 2008 list that really got me excited about underwater photography. I read the forum weekly and I am learning so much. Thank you all for everything you contribute, the questions you answer, and the photos you share.

 

Here is my favorite because of the experience of having this guy dive down at my bubbles and tugging on my fins. I didn't care that the water was 49°F and I was freezing. March 2009. Coronado Islands, Mexico.

Posted on flicker http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4057/422391...b6548a797_o.jpg

[howeikwok 27]

I love pygmies and photographing them. Won a prize in a shootout at lembeh last year with a frontal shot of pregnant one with the fan polyps open. Didn't feel that shot was sharp enough and I was very happy when i got this shot when I went back to Lembeh this year in june. Sharpest shot i've gotten to date.

 

 

Taken with an Olympus E-3 in an ikelite housing and Sigma 105mm Macro lens, Nexus close-up wet lens and twin Inon Z-240 strobes.

[gecko1 12]

This is without a doubt my favorite picture from 2009. My heart wasn't in picture taking mode during this dive at all. It was taken at a spot named after a late friend of mine (Kawika Chetron) who had discovered it not long before he died. Visibility was so good that at first I thought we were in the wrong spot as we descended onto the site. The bottom is about 120 feet and we could see the bottom as we passed 20 feet. This is completely unheard of in Monterey Bay. I spent most of the dive feeling melancholy that my friend wasn't there to see such incredible visibility and I spent the first 30 minutes of the dive just swimming around in a bit of a daze. Near the end of our planned 40 minutes of bottom time I started to snap out of it and found this very small basket star sitting on a gorgonian. I'd shot it earlier in the dive but hadn't gotten anything decent. On a second look I got a different angle that I really liked. After looking at the image more carefully during the decompression I knew I had something special. Kawika was famous (infamous?) for only posting his very best work. He deleted better images than I have in my best of catalog. I'm the opposite kind of photographer and often post extra imperfect images to give a feel to a dive. On this occasion I only had the one image so the two ideals converged. I'm not sure I've ever done any better.

 

 

Clinton

[mandarinfish 0]

Funny, I looked at my photos from my dives in tropical areas this year (which comprised almost all of my diving...), and could not pick a favorite. Nothing jumped out at me. Guess I did not stretch my limits or explore creativity enough there. That will thus be a challenge for my next trip.

 

So I am picking this one, which is technically imperfect, taken a couple of weeks ago in my back yard in Puget Sound, in 48 degree fahrenheit water, shivering in my drysuit at night. A special little fish comes up from the depths this time of year, probably because he knows most divers don't like the cold this much. My first photo of a lumpsucker. Not my best photo, but a special one for me.

 

[drsteve 6]

I was fortunate enough to do a lot of traveling this year and although I got a lot of good images, there weren't any that leaped out as an obvious "best". This is one of the ones that I really like. It is a common subject and is very simple but I love the rich colors and the sense of movement (It was in a blasting current). It was taken during a 4 day live-aboard trip along the Big Sur coast, which is as spectacular underwater as it is above. It is rarely diveable because it is so exposed.

 

[aussie 0]

2009 saw me moving to Far North Queensland and spending most of my time on the Great Barrier Reef with a camera in my hand (still or video). I've seen some great things since being up here, and have taken a bunch of shots I'm more than happy with. However, my favorite for the year was taken at my previous regular dive site - Julian Rocks off Byron Bay, NSW Australia.

 

I saw this flabellina rubrolineata get knocked off his rock by a wayward diver's fin, so took the opportunity to get some shots as he floated back down through the water collum.

 

 

Canon 40D in Aquatica housing, 60mm, 2x Z240's.

 

Have a great new years all, and happy shooting in 2010!

 

Ryan.

[jeroenwisman 0]

Nice positing. I hope to see this little boy in 2010.

 

Happy New Year!

[markprior 0]

I didn't get a lot of diving this year. I'm blaming my wife who broke her wrist and needed an op right before we were due to go to the Maldives, so we ended up with a staycation instead.

 

Anyway this was my favourite shot of the year. It was taken on shearwater on a wetpixel trip in the summer. My strobes were virtually dead when I took this and It was taking thirty seconds to recharge between shots but this attempt came out.

 

 

shot using a Nikon D200 with Tokina 10-17mm