{"id":24671,"date":"2023-06-09T13:32:38","date_gmt":"2023-06-09T17:32:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.dan.org\/?post_type=dan_alert_diver&p=24671"},"modified":"2023-08-01T10:24:32","modified_gmt":"2023-08-01T14:24:32","slug":"the-eclectic-vision-of-renee-capozzola","status":"publish","type":"dan_alert_diver","link":"https:\/\/world.dan.org\/fr\/alert-diver\/article\/the-eclectic-vision-of-renee-capozzola\/","title":{"rendered":"La vision \u00e9clectique de Ren\u00e9e Capozzola"},"content":{"rendered":"
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LA VOIE VERS LA NOTORI\u00c9T\u00c9 DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE SOUS-MARINE<\/strong> est vari\u00e9e et en constante \u00e9volution. Pendant longtemps, elle s'est mesur\u00e9e principalement \u00e0 l'aune des livres ou des articles de magazines publi\u00e9s ou du catalogue de clients pour les illustrations de produits sous-marins. Avec l'\u00e9mergence des m\u00e9dias num\u00e9riques, le nombre d'adeptes d'un photographe sur une plateforme de m\u00e9dias sociaux a pris de l'importance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Success in high-profile photo contests has also become an increasingly prestigious and credible pathway. There is validation in consistently being chosen number one by your peers, along with the extraordinarily wide viewership the winners\u2019 portfolios enjoy on social media. No one has navigated that niche with greater aplomb than Renee Grinnell Capozzola. Her images being consistently recognized as the best of the best speaks to her strategic planning, vision, and technical execution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ren\u00e9e a choisi sa sp\u00e9cialit\u00e9 pr\u00e9f\u00e9r\u00e9e, la photographie moiti\u00e9-moiti\u00e9, et s'en est servie comme d'un marteau pour enfoncer le clou lors de ces premiers concours. Ses images ont remport\u00e9 plus de 50 r\u00e9compenses internationales prestigieuses, dont la premi\u00e8re place aux concours Ocean Geographic Pictures of the Year 2022, 2020 et 2017, la premi\u00e8re place au concours photo de la Journ\u00e9e mondiale des oc\u00e9ans 2021 et 2019 des Nations unies, la premi\u00e8re place au concours Big Picture 2018 : Natural World Photography Competition, et a re\u00e7u le prix Best in Show lors de l'\u00e9dition 2017 de Beneath the Sea. Elle a fait partie de l'\u00e9quipe nationale am\u00e9ricaine qui a remport\u00e9 le championnat mondial lors des World ShootOut 2016 et 2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

L'un de ses plus grands honneurs a \u00e9t\u00e9 d'\u00eatre reconnue par Blancpain en 2021 pour le prix Female Fifty Fathoms (FFF) dans le cadre de l'initiative \"Female Fifty Fathoms\". Magazine oc\u00e9anographique<\/em> Ocean Photography Awards. Also in 2021, she was chosen Underwater Photographer of the Year by the appropriately named Underwater Photographer of the Year (UPY) competition, honoring a single image of excellence: \u201cSharks\u2019 Skylight\u201d is an underwater Snell\u2019s window shot of a pair of blacktip reef sharks at sunset with gulls visible through the water. The UPY\u2019s head judge, Alex Mustard, reflected on what elevated this one image above the 4,500 other entries: \u201cThis is a photograph of hope, a glimpse of how the ocean can be when we give it a chance\u2026. The photographer not only persevered until this serendipitous scene unfolded, but more important, Renee had the talent to capture this precise moment.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\"Ren\u00e9e
Mme Capozzola pose avec son appareil photo sur l'\u00eele de Catalina, avec l'embl\u00e9matique Casino de Catalina en arri\u00e8re-plan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\"Andrea
Andrea Caputo de Blancpain remet \u00e0 Ren\u00e9e la premi\u00e8re montre du Female Fifty Fathoms Award, la premi\u00e8re d'une s\u00e9rie sp\u00e9ciale en \u00e9dition limit\u00e9e.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"sc\u00e8ne
Raja Reefscape Contrairement \u00e0 beaucoup de mes images moiti\u00e9-moiti\u00e9, que je planifie souvent \u00e0 l'avance, cette photo \u00e9tait un survol combin\u00e9 \u00e0 un coup de chance. Lors de notre visite \u00e0 Raja Ampat en octobre 2018 dans le cadre de l'exp\u00e9dition Ocean Geographic Elysium Heart of the Coral Triangle, nous avons eu la chance de plonger \u00e0 Misool, qui est au centre de la biodiversit\u00e9. Apr\u00e8s ma descente initiale, j'ai rencontr\u00e9 cette t\u00eate de corail color\u00e9e, mais j'\u00e9tais dans un l\u00e9ger courant. J'ai instinctivement tourn\u00e9 mon appareil photo \u00e0 la verticale, car la sc\u00e8ne \u00e9tait assez haute, et je n'ai appuy\u00e9 que deux fois sur l'obturateur pendant que je d\u00e9rivais. J'aurais aim\u00e9 faire demi-tour et prendre plus de photos de cette sc\u00e8ne vibrante d'un \u00e9cosyst\u00e8me marin en bonne sant\u00e9.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For all the attention Renee\u2019s photography has received in the past decade, her beginnings in underwater photography were inauspicious. She grew up in Southern California, and her father was an airline executive, so the short five-hour flight to Hawai\u2018i was their family\u2019s island getaway. She recalls walking down Front Street in Lahaina, Maui, as a child and seeing the art galleries by Wyland and Christian Riese Lassen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Les sc\u00e8nes fantastiques avec la vie marine en bas et un paysage marin exotique en haut l'ont particuli\u00e8rement enchant\u00e9e et l'ont incit\u00e9e \u00e0 commencer \u00e0 peindre alors qu'elle n'avait que 7 ans. Elle a pris ce m\u00e9tier tr\u00e8s au s\u00e9rieux ; m\u00eame pendant ses ann\u00e9es d'\u00e9tudes, elle a pass\u00e9 une ann\u00e9e enti\u00e8re \u00e0 travailler dans les moindres d\u00e9tails sur une sc\u00e8ne moiti\u00e9-moiti\u00e9 avec des dauphins, au clair de lune.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The underwater world of scuba diving eluded her, even as she traveled with her husband, Damian, to destinations including Italy and Hawai\u2018i. She remembers sitting in a hotel room in Lahaina and reading a tourist booklet titled 101 choses \u00e0 faire \u00e0 Maui<\/em>. One suggestion was SNUBA, an underwater breathing protocol where the air supply is in a support raft on the surface and connects to the diver\u2019s regulator by a long hose. Getting an intimate view of the reef on SNUBA motivated the couple to try a PADI Discover Diving course. This initial exposure to diving permanently set the hook: Renee and Damian stopped snow skiing and going to Europe and instead began planning how and where to do their next dives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"b\u00e9b\u00e9
Playtime in Mom\u2019s Bubbles This is not one of my favorite pictures in terms of its technicality, but it is one of my top in-water experiences. My good friend Ron Watkins and I were side by side on the surface in Mo\u2018orea in September 2017, waiting for a humpback whale to rise to the surface. We stayed put where our instructor told us, and a few moments later this baby humpback started to ascend. I could see all these bubbles coming up from below. As the baby came through the bubbles just underneath me, I fired off a few frames before it turned to my right and passed just in front of Ron. Moments later the mom came up, revealing the bubbles\u2019 source, and the two whales moved forward. Although it was hard to ascertain if the baby was playing in the bubbles, practicing opening its mouth for feeding, or doing another behavior, I think it looks quite happy!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

They couldn\u2019t spend all their time traveling, however, because Renee had a full-time job that wasn\u2019t underwater photography. She has a master\u2019s of physical therapy degree and worked in sports medicine for five years, but the manipulations were hard on her wrists, so she started teaching Advanced Placement biology and anatomy\/physiology at Palos Verdes High School in California. Family demands also grew with the 2007 and 2011 births of her children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She began her journey into underwater photography around that time, but her equipment was limiting for the first decade of her pursuits. She had only a Sony Cyber-Shot point-and-shoot camera. With its digital lag, limited optics, and minimal strobe options, she couldn\u2019t perform to the level of her aspirations. In 2013 she upgraded to a Canon PowerShot G10 for available light and added a pair of strobes the next year.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While her gear was limiting, her imagination was unbridled. Renee read all the books she could find on underwater photography. Her favorite was David Doubilet\u2019s pivotal Eau, lumi\u00e8re, temps<\/em> (although she might have added \u201cand a good camera\u201d to the title if she had written it). She learned more photo techniques from Martin Edge\u2019s Le photographe sous-marin<\/em>. Lors des s\u00e9minaires propos\u00e9s par Bluewater Photo \u00e0 Culver City, en Californie, elle s'est li\u00e9e d'amiti\u00e9 avec des photographes sous-marins inspir\u00e9s tels que Ron Watkins, Andy et Allison Sallmon, et Mark Strickland.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"requins
Blacktips by Day Several blacktip reef sharks lined up just under the surface in this over-under shot from Mo\u2018orea, French Polynesia. The morning sea and sun conditions were pristine, probably the best I have seen there. My husband and I were on a dive boat that made a short stop at the sandbar before moving on to a morning dive. Because the conditions were absolutely perfect, we stayed at the sandbar while the boat went out for the dive. This decision paid off because I got some nice shots while photographing the blacktip reef sharks and stingrays uninterrupted for a couple of hours. My strobe batteries eventually died, but they were still working when I took this shot.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Un
Un plongeur explore le c\u00e9note de Dreamgate au Mexique<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

All her learning and practice laid the foundation for her career\u2019s explosive growth in 2016, when she finally upgraded to the digital single-lens reflex (SLR) Canon EOS 5D Mark III, a Nauticam housing, and her go-to wide-angle lenses: the Canon 16-35mm and Tokina 10-17mm. The addition of a pair of Sea and Sea YS-D1 strobes brought her into the equipment mainstream. She continued to tweak her preferences and has recently evolved to using a Canon 5D Mark IV in a Seacam housing, and she is recognized as one of Seacam\u2019s highly esteemed brand ambassadors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an aside, I asked Renee why she preferred the digital SLR over the new mirrorless Canon R5. She pointed out that much of her work is from small boats in remote locations, and she sometimes spends five hours in the water working on one series of images. The DSLR\u2019s longer battery life was the deciding factor for her.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a fan of the electronic viewfinder on the mirrorless systems, especially when shooting into the sun,\u201d she added. \u201cThe battery life is about more than longevity \u2014 I prefer an 11-24mm lens for my half-and-half shots, which requires taking off the port and lens from the front and removing the camera from the housing to change batteries. This process is very cumbersome when I\u2019m on a boat all day and the camera is wet.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"trois
Trois tortues Sunburst<\/strong> I captured this image of three green sea turtles circling beneath the sun in Maui, Hawai\u2018i, near a known cleaning station where turtles often congregate. The water was exceptionally clear that morning, and the sun\u2019s rays were perfect at a shallow depth, so I set my camera to a low ISO, high shutter speed, and small aperture in hopes of obtaining a nice sunburst shot of a turtle. I uncharacteristically took only about a dozen images on this dive and spent most of my time watching the turtles, wanting to leave them undisturbed in hopes they would get into a nice formation or display an uncommon behavior. When I saw these three turtles start to come together, I slowly approached them from underneath, making sure not to exhale any bubbles, and waited for the exact moment to hit the shutter. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\"larve
Chauve-souris surprise<\/strong> Cette larve de poisson chauve-souris pancake est apparue lors d'une plong\u00e9e en eau noire \u00e0 Anilao fin d\u00e9cembre 2019. Je plongeais avec l'extraordinaire photographe d'eau noire Mike Bartick, qui a localis\u00e9 ce poisson avec sa lumi\u00e8re quelque part sous 50 pieds. Apr\u00e8s qu'il ait pris quelques photos, je me suis d\u00e9plac\u00e9, j'ai pris quatre ou cinq images et j'ai fini par obtenir ce beau portrait du poisson \u00e0 l'air surpris. Bien que j'utilise un reflex num\u00e9rique plein format pour les images grand angle, j'ai pris cette photo avec un objectif de 60 mm et l'appareil Canon 7D Mark II, dont le capteur est recadr\u00e9.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Renee now travels the world in pursuit of her underwater photos \u2014 she dived Raja Ampat last year with her son and just returned from Antarctica. In the early years though, she remained true to her West Coast getaway of Hawai\u2018i and became especially proficient at photographing the green sea turtles she encountered there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She became a master of light in the half-and-half discipline, blending the ambient light of dusk and the setting sun with the kiss of strobe light to add color and detail in the split frame\u2019s underwater portion. As she continued to perfect the process, she expanded the subject portfolio to include stingrays and blacktip reef sharks in French Polynesia. These were the images that launched her success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The one image that jump-started everything for her is the one she calls \u201cSharky Sunset.\u201d It is the main image for which she received the Blancpain FFF award and the first to make a splash in international photo contests. It exemplifies her approach to working with a singular subject and executing a vision;\u00a0 her talent and perseverance paid off in a big way.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As her career continues to evolve, she has embraced new and creative genres of underwater photography. Recently in Anilao, Philippines, she recommitted herself to blackwater photography, expanding on the work she began in Kona, Hawai\u2018i, in 2018 and pursued further in Anilao and Lembeh over the next year. This dedication paid off with first place in the 2020 Beneath the Sea macro category. This past winter she went to Antarctica to expand her portfolio with coldwater subjects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Si l'image moiti\u00e9-moiti\u00e9 est sa marque de fabrique, sa vision ne cesse de s'\u00e9clipser. AD<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u00a9 Alert Diver<\/em> - Q2 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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