This is the 10th year in a row that the Eilat Red Sea competition took place in Eilat. Integrating elements from photography, high-tech, touristic and diving industries, the Eilat Red Sea event is branded as a worldwide leading underwater photography competition.
Photo by Boaz Samorai, winner of the Jury Award
The Eilat Red Sea photo competition is distinguished by exceptional valuable prizes awarded to the winners, including huge cash prizes, diving vacations in dreamy destinations, underwater photo equipment, scuba gear and more.
During the 2014 event, Eilat Red Sea in partnership with PADI EMEA introduced the National Team underwater photo Olympics as an adventurous opportunity for all underwater photographers.
Underwater photographers originating from the same country were invited to team-up during the Eilat Red Sea competition and to participate in the National Team category. Participants were required to put together an impressive portfolio of 6 images taken during the shoot-out.
The judging phase was on stage during the winning ceremony and took place on September 13 in Eilat and was live broadcasted on the internet. PADI EMEA would like to congratulate Spain, the winner of the prestigious National Team category. First prize for the National Team Category was a cash prize of $3000 sponsored by PADI EMEA.
PADI EMEA also would like to congratulate PADI Course Director Boaz Samorai for winning the 1st price in the Jury Category. Great job Boaz.
The Eilat Red Sea event has so far received media coverage by many international media channels, such as CNN, Fashion TV and Reuters, as well as countless photo and diving magazines.
The man behind the scenes and the spirit of the Eilat Red Sea event is David Pilosof, an experienced underwater photographer, who was also the first photographer in the world to introduce the concept of underwater nudity and fashion images, which can be found on one of the most successful photography books ever published, Samantha.
Photo by Boaz Samurai, winner of the Jury Award
The event also included a live broadcast featuring one of the most magnificent dives ever carried out. The Guinness Record dive included over 200 divers, 26 diving instructors, 32 production members and 12 professional photographers, who dove together on the the Satil wreck in Eilat, Israel. Using a sophisticated technological setup, the dive was live broadcasted online in HD, enabling millions of viewers, online surfers and smart phone owners from all over the world to take part in this extraordinary event.
PADI EMEA would like to congratulate the organizers, the jury and all the amazing photographers that participated in making this the most amazing photography event in the world. We also would like to thank everyone that participated in the Guinness Record dive on the wreck Satil. What an event!!!
See you next year,
PADI EMEA
Testimonial from PADI Course Director and Photographer Boaz Samorai:
“During the last week I have participated in the underwater photo shoot out contest held at Eilat Israel at the water of the Red Sea. A shootout competition means that all of the photographers have specific dates to go and take pictures in a specific environment. It’s pretty tense…. Not only you have to plan your dives safely including taking care of your underwater photography equipment, you have to get some pretty amazing and creative images in order to be noticed by the jury panel so you can win some of the great prizes. The prizes are crazy and awesome ranging from 10’000 USD$! To various exotic diving vacations in the best diving resorts around the world, and some awesome diving and photography equipment. In total I performed 12 dives in the 3 days of the competition spending a total of over 1500 minutes underwater in just 3 days… In those dives I have managed to produce some of the best images I got to take until today, and to push myself to better results and to more and more creative ideas. I managed to gather a pretty nice collection of 5 pictures to the main category of the event – the best portfolio and the jury panel have chose them to the final 5 best portfolio’s and awarded me the Jury prize of 5,000 USD$ worth of underwater photography equipment from the Housing manufacturer – Subal underwater systems. By the way that comes out about 200 USD$ per each hour I have spent underwater during the competition…. Wish I knew that while I was freezing under the water at the end of each dive…. Brrrrrrr…. My pictures have included 3 aspects: showing the underwater beautiful marine life – I took a picture of a parrot fish’s mouth, The connection between man and the underwater environment – I took a split picture showing a woman stroking a Dolphin, and a game between the world above and the world that lies below the surface with a picture of a double exposure showing the moon shining behind the branches of a soft coral.One of the benefits of this events is that is helps with exposing the whole world to the underwater environment and helping to raise the AWARE for protecting the marine life and appreciating what lies beneath the surface. I was especially happy to see that 2 of my students for underwater digital photography course have reached the final stages of the amateur categories! I hope to meet more underwater enthusiasts in the next photo contest which will be held here at the magnificent water of the Red sea and to go and dive together and take some awesome pictures of the beautiful marine life”.
Best regards,
Boaz Samorai, PADI CD#942946