Vanessa Mignon – How I fell in love with macro pictures

Vanessa Mignon is an award-winning wildlife photographer, photojournalist, and skilled journey chief based mostly in Australia, and on the GO Diving Show in September, she’ll be speaking about how she fell in love with macro pictures.

For greater than 15 years, Vanessa has been organising and main small-group wildlife and pictures expeditions to among the world’s most extraordinary locations, from distant oceans to rugged wilderness areas wealthy in biodiversity.

A devoted conservationist, Vanessa hopes that her pictures helps showcase the wonder, variety, and vulnerability of wildlife and wild locations. Through imagery and storytelling, she needs to encourage a deeper reference to nature and encourage motion to guard it.

She commonly donates pictures to help main conservation organisations, together with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), Humane Society International, Australian Marine Conservation Society, and Whale and Dolphin Conservation.

Vanessa acquired the 2015 IFAW Animal Action Award for Marine Photographer of the Year in recognition of her conservation efforts. In 2024, she turned an envoy for the Australian Marine Conservation Society and was appointed Marelux Conservation Liaison Officer.

Her work has been featured in main publications reminiscent of Alert Diver Magazine, Dive, Ezdive, Australian Geographic, and Ocean Geographic, to listing a couple of. And she has positioned over 70 instances in worldwide picture competitions, together with DPG Masters, Underwater Photographer of the Year, Ocean Geographic Pictures of the Year, and Ocean Photographer of the Year.

From Whales to Nudibranchs: How I Fell in Love With Macro Photography

During this session, Vanessa, an award-winning photographer and photojournalist, will share her photographic expertise and the way, after greater than 15 years dedicated to photographing cetaceans, she fell in love with macro topics throughout a keep at Atlantis within the Philippines.

The GO Diving Show is happening on the Sydney Showground on 5-6 September

GO Diving Show ANZ 2026

The GO Diving Show ANZ, now in its third 12 months, returns to the Sydney Showground on 5-6 September and guarantees a wealthy smorgasbord of world-class audio system, inspirational exhibitors and entertaining actions – whether or not you’re a novice diver, an skilled leisure diver or a hardcore techie, there’s something for everybody. And with youngsters beneath 16 going free, it’s the good weekend of water-related enjoyable for the entire household.

Central to proceedings is the Main Stage, full with large video wall. Headlining the Main Stage is industrial diver – and the inspiration for Hollywood film Last Breath – Chris Lemons, whose superb story of survival after being stranded on the underside of the North Sea in 100m has nonetheless left the specialists baffled. You might need seen the film and the documentary of the identical title, however listening to from the person himself is solely unmissable.

Chris is joined on the Main Stage by acclaimed technical diver, underwater photographer and wreck hunter Pete Mesley, marine biologist, award-winning writer and documentary film-maker Sheree Marris, underwater photographer and conservationist Ross Long, and the intrepid crew from Shipwreck Hunters Australia, who will likely be taking us behind the scenes of the favored TV sequence.

As effectively because the star-studded Main Stage, there are additionally three devoted secondary levels – Photo Stage, Tech Stage, and Inspiration Stage – boasting a cracking roster of presenters, together with underwater photographers Vanessa Mignon, Michael Aw and Brett Lobwein, technical divers Mark Tozer, Yana Stashkevich and John Kendall, and plenty of extra. Be educated, entertained and impressed by this legendary line-up.

The GO Diving Show is not only a sequence of levels internet hosting fabulous talks, there are additionally a host of interactive options to swimsuit younger and outdated, and with a few of them, you don’t even have to be a diver to take pleasure in them!

There are two incredible VR diving experiences – discover inside Mount Gambier’s iconic Tank Cave, in a stunningly life like three- to five-minute ‘fly-through’ of a reconstructed part of the cave, and enterprise into 70m-plus off Sweden to go to the historic Mars shipwreck, which is astonishingly well-preserved after a number of hundred years underwater.

The Royal Australian Navy are becoming a member of the present this 12 months, providing an immersive look into the elite world of maritime defence. They will likely be bringing alongside a group of cutting-edge tools for a really interactive show. From superior tactical diving rigs and high-tech rebreathers to the newest in underwater surveillance and clearance diving gear, this can be a uncommon alternative to get hand’s-on with the tech that powers the nation’s naval operations. Whether you’re a gear fanatic or inquisitive about a profession beneath the waves, come meet the specialists and discover the equipment that defines naval excellence.

After an ideal reception final 12 months, the Historical Diving Society are returning, showcasing the fascinating historical past of diving via a devoted show celebrating how underwater exploration has developed. Visitors can count on to see examples of traditional diving tools, together with conventional hard-hat gear, alongside knowledgeable insights into the strategies, expertise and tales that formed the early days of the game. Run by passionate volunteers, the show provides an in-depth have a look at diving heritage and is a must-see for anybody taken with how fashionable scuba diving got here to be.

If you need to really ‘get wet’ for actual, there are two swimming pools proper within the corridor – one is devoted to newbies taking their first tentative fin-steps into the world of diving with an entry-level trydive, whereas the opposite is dedicated to certified divers to who to strive one thing new – particularly closed-circuit rebreathers, and sidemount configuration.

And in fact, on the coronary heart of the present, surrounding the levels and options will likely be a broad vary of exhibitors, from vacationer boards and tour operators to resorts, liveaboards, coaching companies, retailers, producers, and conservation organisations. This sensational array of all-things-diving supplies the proper excuse to scout your subsequent vacation vacation spot, plan your subsequent certification course, take pleasure in a bit of retail remedy on some shiny new equipment, and discover out the newest efforts to guard our watery planet.

Get your tickets now!

Tickets for the GO Diving Show ANZ are on sale now – advance day tickets are $12 as an alternative of the on-the-door value of $15, however the first 1,000 tickets are 2-for-1 with code TWO4ONE, making it unbelievable worth for cash, so get your skates on and e book now. Kids 16 and beneath get in at no cost, making it the proper household day trip. There is loads of parking on-site and the venue is straightforward to get to with loads of transport choices, so get the dates in your diary now and put together for an epic weekend celebrating all types of diving.