When Brian Mayes got awarded as "World Champion 2010" at underwaterphotography.com (UWP) he posted to his Facebook wall that he always believed, only photographers with tons of uw photo equipment and thousands of bored dollars on the bank account ( well, that's my free interpretation ) can become world winners. When… Read more

When Brian Mayes got awarded as "World Champion 2010" at underwaterphotography.com (UWP) he posted to his Facebook wall that he always believed, only photographers with tons of uw photo equipment and thousands of bored dollars on the bank account ( well, that's my free interpretation ) can become world winners. When I readed this, I thought by myself "well, he probably has some similiar stuff as me : A normal mid-class D-SLR, normal housing, 1 or 2 strobes and that's it". Nothing too fancy, but good and sufficent. Now I see, that "Champ Mayes" took all this great pics with compact camera systems ! This improves for me personally the value of Brian's abilities and my respect is now even bigger. For ages, I am teaching my students that the photographer shoot the pics, not the camera. Well, here again, Brian proofed it. If Brian Mayes shoot this winning photos with a compact camera, we all others should safe our money and buy our darlings some flowers instead of lurking around photography equipment stores...as we see again : making it big, heavy & expensive is not the key to success :-)) I unfortunetly didn't had the honor to meet Brian Mayes personally, yet, but during our "virtual" contacts I discovered him as a nice character with a great sense of humour. Quality of his underwater photos are defenitly far beyond the standard and Brian is a inspiration for all of us and it feels good to have him as buddy and familiy member of the blue planet. I wish you the very best, "Champ Mayes" ! Izmir/Turkey -3rd February 2011 Rico Besserdich Head of the Underwater Photography Department Association of Fine Arts Photography (IFOD), Izmir-Turkey CMAS Underwater Photography Instructor CMAS/BARAKUDA Instructor Trainer ( Moniteur 3 ) UWP.com Site Moderator Underwater Photographer

Until today, I don't know how Brian manages to take images far sharper and better than my DSLR camera and strobes. Did I forget to mention he does not use an External strobe! But his ability to light up his subjects are to die for. Aside from being a wonderful and talented underwater photographer. Brian is one of the n… Read more

Until today, I don't know how Brian manages to take images far sharper and better than my DSLR camera and strobes. Did I forget to mention he does not use an External strobe! But his ability to light up his subjects are to die for. Aside from being a wonderful and talented underwater photographer. Brian is one of the nicest guys I've ever met in my life. Truly an Honor and Pleasure to call you my friend.