The freshwater quarry at Capernwray, Lancashire, UK was the venue for the 2017 Northern Underwater Photography Group (NUPG) Splash-In. On the day they welcomed the 11 people who had registered to take part in the event. The divers were from different clubs and agencies including BSAC, PADI and SSI.

Yo-Han Cha, NUPG Chairman, Elaine White, Caroline and Nick Robertson-Brown had a very busy day giving advice on how to take a better underwater photograph with the various cameras and video recorders brought along as well as advice on post processing images using various software. The cameras included Go Pros, Compacts, Micro 4/3rds and DSLRs.

The day remained dry and fairly warm so everyone was able to get underwater and get lots of practice. Following the dives everyone got together where all the images were judged and the result was very close, with only one vote separating the top three photos.

The winning image by Richard Burke

A massive congratulations to Richard Burke for his winning shot of a diver with torch reflected in the “Apeks” Van wing mirror, a clever and original shot. The camera he used was a Sony RX100 Mark II. He was awarded his prize by Nick Robertson-Brown of Frogfish Photography who had sponsored the trophy.

Joint Runner-Up image taken by Glynn Phillips

Joint runners-up were Glynn Phillips for his macro shot of mussels with a fine eye to detail and the shallow focus giving a nice “Bokeh Effect” with the mussels in the background. His camera was an Olympus EPL5 whilst the other runner up Matthew Boa was using a Nikon D7000 with a Tokina 11-16mm lens for his wide angle black and white shot of a diver and wreck.

Joint Runner-Up image taken by Matthew Boa

At the end of the day everyone was very pleased that a lot of advice had been given about underwater photography and photo editing and everyone there had had a thoroughly enjoyable day.

The NUPG would like to thank all those that turned up on the day as well as those that assisted with the preparation and running of the competition and for those members of the club that turned up on the day to give their support and as well as to all the entrants. The NUPG look forward to seeing you again at one of their monthly meetings or at another future event. For more information about the underwater photography club visit www.nupg.org.uk.

The next meeting of the NUPG on the 9^th October will host guest speaker, Kirsty Andrews, recent winner of the wide angle category in The 2017 British & Irish Underwater Photography Championship. She will be giving a presentation entitled “Southern Comfort – A Tour of some South West Diving Photography Highlights”.

Rainbow Warrior by Kirsty Andrews

So please put this date in your diary.  If you would like to join members of the NUPG for a curry beforehand try to arrive between 6.15pm and 6.45pm as the restaurant can get quite busy.

The competition theme is: Unedited (Completely unedited image not even whole image adjustment!)

Full details for competition entries can be found here.

Details of where we meet can be found here.

Everyone is welcome!