Sodwana Shootout 2001
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South Africa's largest underwater photographic competition
It happened again – I had a ball and so did every one else! |
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Think about it – limited dives, limited film and you gotta produce something brilliant. What are your chances of taking your best-ever shot in these conditions? What makes it special is that everyone’s willing to have a go, and display their slides to a very discerning audience. And people see it through in spite of horrible things like equipment failure. I know of at least one competitor who couldn’t shoot with her usual camera. She was forced to use much more limited equipment and still managed to produce images worthy of entrance in the advanced section - very sporting and, I believe, in keeping with the general attitude of the competitors.
You can imagine, people feel very real pressure and at the same time, they’re there to have fun with their friends and enjoy the diving.
Competitors had the opportunity to
dive on Friday and Saturday, and had to submit their slide films by 2pm on
Saturday for development – some screaming and scraping in at the very
last minute. Once the films
were developed, competitors chose their two best shots. As you can
imagine, this involved much peering and huffing and puffing along with
squealing of course. Then they submitted them to the administrators, who had the
glorious task of numbering everything so that judging is blind.
Pouring
over the light table
This
year's judges:Lynne Fraser, Lyn de Lacy and Peter Pinnock
The judges have a couple of hours
to view the slides with lupes & light-tables as well as with the
projector. And I hear that
this year, the judging went pretty smoothly.
While the standard was even higher than last year, the winners in
each category were clear. 
Hats
off to judges and organisers: Lynne Fraser, Greg de Valle, Peter Pinnock,
Lyn de Lacy and Debbie Oscroft
Once
again prize giving was held at Coral Divers’ lapa.
First, all the entries were shown to a fascinated audience –
which I thought emitted some especially strange noises this year, along
with a lot of friendly jibes and applause.
Prize-giving was very exciting, with top prize winners genuinely beaming – not surprising really.
The prizes were pretty spectacular. 
Rowan - now a familiar face at the shootout
Monty
congratulates Dave -
another beaming winner
Lyn
de Lacy, representing Seekers Dive Travel, presents Brad Kidd with
the very grand first prize, that's 2 people
7 nights unlimited diving liveaboard on the Manthiri in the Maldives
with meals. No wonder he's grinning!
These
guys, together with
Air Madagascar sponsored an amazing prize - 5 days diving in Nose Be!
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| Overall
Winner of the competition |
Bradley Kidd |
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| ADVANCED | ADVANCED - HIGHLY COMMENDED | ||
| Macro | Jenny-Lynn Gray | Macro | Fiona Ayerst |
| Standard | Gordon Hiles | Macro | David Gray |
| Wide Angle | Eugene Viljoen | Wide Angle | Rowan Duval |
| Standard | Mark Geldenhuys | ||
| Creativity Prize | Stuart Mather-Pike | Technical & Difficulty prize | Brian Wellman |
| NOVICE |
NOVICE - HIGHLY COMMENDED |
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| Macro | Martin Wessels | Macro | Francois de Clerq |
| Standard | Clive Hastings | Standard | Tania Borman |
| Wide Angle | Len Fish | Wide Angle | Bevan Challenor |
| Macro | Dudley Kelbe | ||
| Macro | Abie Eksteen | ||
| Sponsor Links | ||||
| Dive Seekers | Detours Into Africa | Hartleys | Suunto | Manex & Power Marine |
| Sandton Scuba | Kewe Sales | Coral Divers | Sodwana Bay Lodge Scuba Centre | |
2002 Competition Photos will be published here at www.AfricanScuba.com. Watch the Gallery.