Rhode Island Blue Shark 1

Rhode Island Blue Shark 1

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I recently returned home to the island of Kauai after spending the last month visiting family and friends on “the mainland”. While vacationing with my wife’s family on the East Coast, I spent a few days photographing sharks from Rhode Island. It was a fantastic experience and I might even go so far as to claim that it was my favorite shark trip that I have ever done. Brian was a fantastic host and guide, and though the boat ride left me a little green in the gills each day, I would highly encourage any aspiring shark photographer to book a trip with Pelagic Expeditions.

I had hoped to photograph a mako shark during my 3 days on the water, but only saw one a few fleeting times. Dang, it was fast and my photos unremarkable. Fortunately, there were a lot of curious blue sharks that stayed around the boat and provided me with plenty of photo opportunities. This is one of my favorite images of a blue shark passing incredibly close to my dome port. I need to point out that I was not in a cage, but simply floating on the surface while having the hull of the boat against my back for safety. There were usually 2 or 3 blue sharks swimming around, so it was easy to keep track of them, but by my last dive there were at least a half dozen sharks taking turns at bumping into my camera. I spent about 30 minutes in the water solo before deciding that I had enough of sharks bumping into me.

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Beqa Bull Shark 1

Beqa Bull Shark 1

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This is my favorite image from my recent bull shark diving adventure in Fiji. I like the vertical composition of the shark coming directly at me with several other sharks silhouetted in the background. I wonder if this will someday make a nice cover? Man, that was a great trip.

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Beqa Bull Shark 27

Beqa Bull Shark 27

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Do I need to get any closer to my subject? This is as close as anyone ever needs to get to a bull shark. I took this picture while shark diving with Beqa Adventure Divers during my recent scuba diving trip to Fiji. Many people ask me if I am ever scared around sharks? I have total respect for these wild creatures, however, being timorous does not allow me to photograph them.

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Beqa Bull Shark 16

Beqa Bull Shark 16

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During the second half of my recent Fiji scuba diving adventure, I worked with Mike Neumann of Beqa Adventure Divers to photograph sharks. He helped me get as close as anyone ever needs to get to upwards of 60 bull sharks at a time. I have been fortunate to be able to photograph a variety of sharks over the years and I have to say that this was my favorite shark dive that I have ever done. Since I was completely outnumbered by the bull sharks, I had to focus my attention on them rather than looking though my viewfinder. I became accomplished at shooting while holding my camera low next to my torso and constantly swiveling my head from side to side in the interest of self-preservation. This resulted in a lot of poorly composed and utterly useless images, but included in this agglomeration were a few keepers like this one.

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Tiger Shark 100

Tiger Shark 100

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I have just returned from an incredible week scuba diving with Jim Abernathy’s Scuba Adventures. The goal of the trip was to get as close to sharks in their natural environment as possible. The sharks did not disappoint, but unfortunately the cloudy weather last week in the Bahamas was not as ideal for underwater photography as I would have liked. Most people probably do not consider being surrounded by 50+ lemon and Caribbean reef sharks, as well as a few tiger sharks to be a good time. However, let me assure everyone that diving with sharks is not something to fear, let alone regard as a death wish.

Sharks are beautiful creatures that are being rapidly exterminated from our world’s oceans, almost exclusively because of the shark fin trade in Asia. Cutting the fins off of a shark and throwing the still live animal back in the ocean to die is a cruel and wasteful practice that I can only hope will eventually be stopped while there are still enough sharks remaining. I realize that most people reading this have probably never even considered eating shark fin soup, but too many people still consider it a status simple. Hopefully, my beautiful portrait of this curious tiger shark will encourage a few people to learn more about this despicable practice or even consider supporting environmental groups working to save sharks.

During my week long trip aboard the M/V Shearwater, I spent from 4 to 6 hours each day underwater photographing sharks. Though I was constantly surrounded by dozens of sharks, I was most interested in the larger and potentially more dangerous tiger sharks. Jim constantly reinforced that we could ignore the smaller sharks but needed to remain hyper-vigilant for tigers. Jim’s mantra was, “If you get bit by a tiger shark, you are going to bleed out and die!” As soon as we saw a tiger, we were supposed to point at it for the benefit of the other divers and not take our eyes off of it. It was amazing that a few of the European divers did not take this to heart and were sneeked up on more the once.

This is my favorite image from the trip. This photo is of one of the few tiger sharks that came curiously close enough to actually bump the front of my dome port. In order to get low enough to photograph this shark, I had to lay down on my stomach on the bottom right as the shark swam up to me. Most of the time, it was difficult to exclude the other divers, sharks, and fish from the image, but this encounter happened when Jim and I were the only 2 divers in the water. This was a much more “authentic” experience than my other dives with divers next to me. It also helped the underwater visibility, since no one was kicking up the bottom. I really like how this tiger shark swam straight towards me and then gave me just the right amount of a “smile”. I created this image using my Canon 5DmkIII and Canon 17-40mm f4 lens with a B+W +3 diopter inside my Ikelite 5DmkIII housing with an 8″ dome port and dual DS160 strobes. I processed the RAW file using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS6, plus used Nik Software’s Dfine 2.0 to remove noise & Color Efex 4‘s white balance filter. I also cloned out the backscatter from my strobes and a few smaller fish that were distracting in the background.

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Guadalupe Great White Shark 21

Guadalupe Great White Shark 21

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Over the last few weeks, I have been diligently working on processing images from the trips that I have never edited in the last 4 years. I am never home long enough to catch up, plus I really dislike processing images. I have probably gone through at least 50,000 images and deleted many of them, but I have also discovered many fantastic images that have been lurking on my hard-drives. At the time, I remember being disappointed in some of these trips, but I am glad that time has allowed me to realize the potential of what I did photograph. Also, my image processing skills have greatly improved over what I was capable of a few years ago.

For example, consider this dramatic image of a great white shark that I photographed at Isla Guadalupe off the coast of Baja, Mexico in September 2008. This is a fine image, but at the time all that I remembered was feeling disgruntled that I never got the head-on, jaws open picture that every shark photographer dreams of. I also was not very good at processing blue underwater images at that point, so I could not see the possibilities of this image through the overpowering blue of the RAW file. The fish that surrounded the shark cage also “ruined” my picture, but now they do not bother me nearly as much as they did at the time. I have been fortunate to have photographed great white sharks twice in my lifetime. This image has gotten me thinking again about doing some more shark diving trips in the near future. I created this image using my Canon 5D and 17-40mm f4 lens in my old Ikelite 5DmkII housing with 8″ dome port. It is a single exposure which was mostly processed using Aperture 3.0. I also removed much of the cyan cast and cloned out particles floating in the water using Photoshop CS5.

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Guadalupe Great White Shark 12

Guadalupe Great White Shark 12

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This is another one of my favorite images from my recent trip to photograph great white sharks down in Mexico. As I mentioned in my previous post, it was a tough trip, but I did come away with a few new images that are worth sharing.

I have been working on updating my website and moving some of the galleries and pages around. The new layout is a work in progress, but it should be all straightened out by the end of the month. The major change that is coming to my site is the e-commerce update. Soon you will be able to order and purchase fine-art prints directly from my website. Please visit more of my Great White Shark Photography.

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Guadalupe Great White Shark 1

Guadalupe Great White Shark 1

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I recently returned from my second trip to remote Guadalupe Island to photograph great white sharks. Guadalupe is located in the eastern Pacific Ocean 180 miles west of the central Baja Peninisula. I first visited Guadalupe in 2002, shortly after my first daughter was born. Maddy is now 6 and in 1st grade. Time flies. I was hoping to greatly improve my coverage by joining a 7 day trip, which would allow me 5 full days at the island. The weather and sharks did not cooperate as much as I was hoping they would. Most of my better images were taken on the first day at the island, including this one. Please visit more of my Great White Shark Photography.

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Oceanic Whitetip Shark 1

Oceanic Whitetip Shark 1

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I have been spending the last few weeks updating and organizing the website. I hope that you like the new layout. I am now starting to get back to editing my recent images from my trip to Hawaii. My friend and well-known underwater photographer Doug Perrine was kind enough to take me out on his boat for a shark encounter. We went out to one of the FAD buoys and waited for a few minutes, and sure enough 2 oceanic whitetip sharks made their appearance! We spent about 2 hours in the water trying to photograph them. It was my first time with oceanics and it was very beautiful. I’ve always heard that they will come right up to you and bump you, which sure enough they did. This was the best shot that I got while the sun was still out. Please visit more of my Shark Photography.

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