Australasia underwater festival 2011 and underwater photo shootout announced

Tim Hochgrebe and the Underwater Australasia website are organizing a large underwater photography shootout known as Underwater Festival 2011. As you can see below, their motto is "10 days to shoot, wherever you are!"

Here's the facts on Underwater Festival 2011:

• September 2nd to 11th, 2011.
• Takes place in 25 countries including Southeast asia, Tahiti, Fiji, Micronesia, Australia and New Zealand
• Lots of great prizes - including gear, awesome liveaboards like the Arenui, and great resort packages at places like Manta Bay resort and Lissenung resort. Their website says it's $100,000 dollars worth of prizes. Any underwater photos taken during Sep 2nd-11th in those 25 countries can be entered into the shootout.
• 15 different categories, like behavior, supermacro, freshwater, etc.
• Judges include well-known underwater photographers Mathieu Meur, couple Stephen Wong/Takako Uno, Tony Wu and Gary Bell.
• Many sponsors are also holding diving & underwater photography events at this time, attracting people who may be interested in participating in the shootout.

If you want to participate, visit their signup page. It looks like a lot of fun to me!