Ofu Island Over Under 2

My regular readers have probably noticed that I have been on an extensive underwater photography binge in the last year. I’ve always said that I aspire to shoot mostly underwater subjects, and am happy that most of my 2012 trips will be at or below the surface. So sticking with that theme, here is another underwater image from my December trip to the National Park of American Samoa. I spent a week at the Vaoto Lodge on Ofu Island and had this idyllic beach setting all to myself each day. This is my favorite over-under image from all the time that I spent in the water. I really like how the coral rubble in the sandy bottom leads the viewer’s eye directly into the jagged peaks. I created this image with my Canon 5DmkII and 17-40mm f4 lens with a B+W +2 graduated neutral density filter inside my Aquatech 5DmkII housing with an Aquatech 8″ dome port. This image is a single-exposure which required a minimal amount of processing using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5.