We are happy to announce that the winner of the RSDS Photo Competition for August 2023 has been chosen. Congratulations to Laszlo Maraczi with his photo "Commitment".
Laszlo wins a free stay at the RSDS village of his choice. You can view the winning photo, and all the August participants here.
If you would like a chance to win, simply register on our website and upload your photos from our competition page. Each day we choose a 'photo of the day' from the selection of entries. Anyone can register on our website and vote on photos entered into the competition. At the end of the month our Photo Pro and photography workshop leader, Paul ‘Duxy’ Duxfield, looks at the votes and chooses a winner from the highest scoring photos. Full terms and conditions and prize details are available here.
Congratulations again to Laszlo, and good luck to all those participating in the coming months!
From Paul Duxfield, our competition judge:
Ok, I’m lucky enough this month to actually be in the nice cool Marsa Shagra Marketing office with Sarah, Flavia and George, out here in the Red Sea.
I’ve been in the water already today with Sarah and Flavia and true to form they left me for dust with their ninja like nudibranch spotting skills. Truth be told though it was just really relaxing to go for an easy dive this morning, no pressure just blowing bubbles and floating weightless. It’s why we do it right?
And actually even though I’m rarely without a camera of one description or another I would totally endorse just going for a dive now and again, maybe even without a camera just to reconnect with what we all love to do.
So, calm and collected I’m sat with the gang and it’s become a bit of a team effort to judge our August competition entrants.
Our final three are pretty unanimous choices.
So we were all taken by the colourful purple crown jellyfish, and our shooter Peggy has positioned it so that there’s some light coming through it which always works well with translucent creatures like this, then we’ve got a lovely wide angle reef scene that tells a story in one frame, with some glass fish forming a crescent around a hunting Lionfish on a reef top by Pamela, and last but not least the dramatic Tiger Cardinal Fish protecting his eggs behind his triangular sharp teeth. These guys have longer and deeper jaws than the females to allow them to provide this guardian role for the large clutch of eggs.
After much debate about the relative merits of each of the shots we’ve all decided that the Tiger Cardinal with eggs has clinched the top spot. It’s different enough from a lot of other shots of these fish doing the rounds, by having a slightly diagonal rather than head on composition and you’re still getting eye contact and you can see the tiny eggs in such pin sharp detail that you’re able to see the eyes of the embryonic youngsters.
Simple and well eggsecuted displaying patience, timing ,creativity and technical eggselence. Well done Laszlo!
Duxy has been running escorted photo workshops in Marsa Shagra for the last years. Next Year he will be back with a new one. Why not join him for Fotofest from June 13-20 2023 - full information?
He will be at the Marsa Nakari location alongside Sarah O’Gorman critter spotter extraordinaire, for a fun filled five plus days of easy going diving informal talks and photo clinics daily, with help and advice on composing, shooting and editing your shots to take them to the next level.
For those with GoPro’s, compact cameras, mirrorless and DSLRs there will be something for everyone.
It really doesn't matter if you're a complete beginner or regular underwater shooter, I like to keep things fun and exclusive and non intimidating.
It’d be great to see you there in June 2024.
