Jan Azier photography

biography

photo galleries

publications

dive sites visited

courses&presentations

guestbook

ordering

Messages

Zeeland

In the past months we made many dives in the Dutch waters of the Oosterschelde in Zeeland. Starting from the early spring there was many beautiful marine life to observe. For instance the amazing tubularia (see picture below). Many species of nudibranche including the not very common spotted facelina auriculata. With it's beautiful purple colour, it lookes like an exotic species. Also we observed a lot of cutllefish (Sepia) and squid. Like every year, these animals visit the shallow waters of Zeeland to spawn. Not always, but still on many occasions the visibility was surprisingly good. On many locations you can observe workingmen performing at the large waterworks. These works has to be carried out in order to restore and improve the strength of the dikes. Without any doubt it is of great importance that these works are carried out, becouse waterlevels are rising worldwide. But there is another side to this. A discussion started about the materials that are used at these works. It appears that some materials can couse a lot of damage to the marinelife. It is good to know that a group of concerned divers are now aproaching the involved authorities. They trie to convince them of the importance of using the right materials, to avoid serious damage to the underwater envirnoment. My contrubution to this is limited to making beautiful pictures and showing them to as many people as possible. In this way I hope to contribute in more knowledge and understanding about the surprisingly beautiful, but at the same time very vulnerable marine life in the Oosterschelde.

Website

Finally I finished my underwater photography website and at the end of March of this year it was ready to launce it on the internet. When people informed me about my website address. the answer always has to be I haven’t got a website yet. I am pleased that this situation has come to an end now. Building a website is enjoyable to do but also a lot of work to come to this first edition. Everything starts by finding suitable software to work with, followed by a plan for the looks and the content of the site. After this you can finally start filling the site with the required information. A lot of hours have gone in to it but I can say that I am very happy with the result. I wish everybody with an interest for underwater photography a lot of pleasure  looking true the underwater photo galleries of underwater images which where taken on tropical reefs but also in colder waters more near by, like in Zeeland the Netherlands. I appreciate it always very much if visitors of my website leave their comments in the guestbook.

La Fete de L'Image sous Marine - Strasbourg

At the beginning of March this year we visited this French underwater photography and film event, by the organisation called the European championship of underwater photography. This event starts on Friday and ends on Sunday. During these days you can see a lot of film and photo material. For the championship there are different competitions for photo- film and slides. The competition is also organized in to separate categories, starters and masters. It is possible to send in either one ore more prints ore series of digital files in described categories. There is also a separate category of black and white images. All contributions will be shown during these days in Strasbourg and are without exception of a high level. The event was well visited during all three days. By the jury Italy was pointed out as the European champion in the category digital series. The competitor for Italy was the former world champion Dennis Palbiani which we have met already during an international competition in Marseille. In total there were 21 competitors from different European countries, my own series of digital images ends on place number 10. Images of this event organized by Leo Barkate can be seen on the French website of this Festival.

World championship underwater photography

The world championship of underwater photography 2009 will be held at the end of May until the beginning of June. The organizing country this year is Korea. The competition will be held in Seoul at Jeju island. The numbers one and two of the national competition of each country have the rights to join this world championship. For the Netherlands the rights to take part in the competition of this world championship are preserved for the numbers one and two from last years National competition Pieter Rutten and Jan Azier. After considering I decided not to enter this competition in Korea. This decision was based on the location and other already existing diving plans.

Dutch national championship underwater photography

This championship as every year organised by the Dutch photo commission Aquashot, will be held again this year during two Sundays at the end of May and the beginning of June 2009.  Taking part in this competition is possible by reporting to the organisation on both Sundays present at the divingcentre de Kabbelaar at Scharendijke. Rules about this competition can be found on the website of Aquashot, where you can also find reports and winning pictures of last years competition.

Specialty underwater photography

Last year a new course book for this renewed specialty has come out. On request of the Dutch Underwater Sports Federation (Nob) together with other underwater photographers I contributed in the promotion of this new book by giving information at the stand of the Nob during the dive exhibition this year. There was a lot of interest and a serious number of books during this event find their way to their new owners, as well beginning as experienced underwater photographers. It is a fact that since the digital photography entered the market more and more divers take interest in underwater photography. Also on my own diving club there was a lot of interest in a course for underwater photography. November last year I have organized a photo course for 18 persons at our diving club. In this course was also included the information from the new specialty. By doing this the competitors were able to complete this course with the official specialty card underwater photography. If you as an underwater photographer are interested in getting comment to your underwater pictures, than there is a possibility to send in your picture material to the redaction of Underwatersport magazine. I will add my comments and tips to your pictures and they will be placed in the special rubric of this magazine. If you are a real experienced underwater photographer and you would like to show your pictures to an audience than please contact me to make arrangements for a presentation of your pictures during one of the presentation events of Aquashot, the Dutch Underwater photographers commission.

Bali- Flores- Komodo

Our last Diving Holliday was in September 2008. With a stopover in Singapore we fly to Den Passar airport on Bali. We stayed for one night at Bali and the next day we leaved again by small aeroplane from Indonesian Air Travel for the last part of our trip to Flores. We stayed on Flores for ten days, and during this stay we did two boat dive trips every day in total 12 dives in the Northern part of Komodo National Park. Dive sites we visited are Batu Bolong with big schooling of fish, Castle Rock with lots of sharks and big schools of Fusiliers and Jacks and the Lagoon where we had several encounters with large Manta rays. We also visited Rinca Island where we encountered the Komodo dragons. After our stay on Flores we went back to Bali for boarding on the Mermaid I for a 10 days live-aboard. The live-aboard  went through the area of Bali, Sumbawa, Lombok all the way to Komodo Island. Spectacular diving sites were visited, such as Hot Rocks, a dive site with volcanic activities, where you can actually see gas bubbles coming out of the black sandy bottom and where the seawater is just above the bottom on some places too hot to keep your hand. Also beautiful diving sites as Cannibal Rock, Gps-point and Rhino rock were visited. The most spectacular diving site was without doubt Horseshoe bay, only in this place you can easily stay for months and still not  have the feeling of seeing everything of this place. A short impression of this diving holiday and series of pictures can be seen elsewhere on this website. 

Renturn to top