Pink Anemonefish 5

Pink Anemonefish 5

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I photographed this pink anemonefish during my recent scuba diving expedition to Fiji. I love photographing clown anemonefish. They have a lot of character as they swim about in the tentacles of their host anemone. I like how it is looking right at my camera with an comical expression of indignation. I took hundreds of photos during this dive trying to get the fish to look directly at me as the anemone’s tentacles all were going the same direction in the current.

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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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Namena Soft Corals 10

Namena Soft Corals 10

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I love photographing soft coral reef scenes. Who can blame me when there is more color in this image than almost any sunset that I have ever experienced? It was made in the Namena Marine Reserve during my recent trip to Fiji. I was happy that I was able to spend 2 days diving in this spectacular area and experienced ideal conditions. When I return to Fiji to scuba dive again, I am going to devote a week just to the Namena dive sites.

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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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Namena Soft Corals 1

Namena Soft Corals 1

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I have been back home from my amazing scuba diving adventure in Fiji for almost 2 weeks. I have also been on a self-imposed social media holiday for the last month, so hopefully my friends and fans will find my new underwater images worth the wait.

My Fiji trip began with 10 days of scuba diving based on the Nai’a liveaboard during which we traveled through the Bligh Waters to the Koro Sea. I dove most of Fiji’s better known dive sites, but my favorites were located in the Namena Marine Preserve. This is where I where I photographed this orgy of color which includes brilliant soft corals and swarms of colorful anthias. In order to create this image, I had to scuba dive when the current was moving fast enough so that the soft corals were inflated and the fish were schooling together. However, the current makes it very difficult to maintain my place in the water column, so I resort to a combination of kicking and drifting into position while composing with my viewfinder and making sure not to disturb the reef. No wonder I go through air so fast. I also spent most of the dive trying to get the reef fish to cooperate by all swimming in the same direction and filling out the frame. That is not an easy task, but I eventually got everything to line up.

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Vava'u Humpback Whale Calf 12

Vava’u Humpback Whale Calf 12

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This week, I am going to share several images of baby animals that I have photographed during my recent trips, starting with this gregarious humpback whale calf in Tonga. While I was snorkeling on the surface, this calf swam right underneath me while its mom patiently watched below. I really like the arching position of the calf’s body and pectoral fins, as well as the eye contact that the calf made with me. In order to photograph an image like this, I have to spend a lot of time searching for friendly whales and be comfortable swimming in the open ocean with my camera. Most of my best pictures were taken at 17mm, which is a very close encounter. I created this image using my Canon 5DmkIII and Canon 17-40mm f4 lens inside my Ikelite 5DmkIII housing with an 8″ dome port. I processed the RAW file using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS6, plus I applied Nik Color Efex 4‘s White Neutralizer filter. Check out my photo gallery for more humpback whale photos underwater, of breaches, tails, spouting and bubble-net feeding.

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Vava'u Humpback Mother & Calf 1

Vava’u Humpback Mother & Calf 1

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This is a photo of a tender moment being shared by a humpback whale mother and her young calf. Humpback moms spend most of their time resting beneath the surface, but their babies have to breath much more frequently. When a calf comes up to breath, it will often playfully frolic on the surface, otherwise, it stays close to mom and hides underneath her pectoral fins or tail. After this calf came up for a breath, I photographed it gently nuzzling up against its mom’s belly. Aww, cute! Check out several more stunning images of these two humpback whales underwater. I created this image using my Canon 5DmkIII and Canon 17-40mm f4 lens inside my Ikelite 5DmkIII housing with an 8″ dome port. I processed the RAW file using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS6, plus I applied Nik Color Efex 4‘s White Neutralizer filter.

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Vava'u Humpback Whale Calf 3

Vava’u Humpback Whale Calf 3

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Recently, I have been rethinking my workflow and processing techniques. I am not talking about a total overhaul of the way that I edit, but rather becoming more efficient and effective. Processing underwater images requires much more effort than above water images, particularly if I want a gray whale swimming through a blue background. For this reason, I have been holding off on editing my new underwater humpback whale images until now.

Tony Wu and I co-lead an exciting Humpback Whale Photography Tour in both Alaska and Tonga last summer. This beautiful portrait is from our first encounter with a friendly mother and calf in Tonga. Momma was resting about 20′ below the surface as the curious calf swam over to check me out and pretty much ran me over. We did not actually make contact, but if I would have extended my arm bent at the elbow I would have been able to touch it. I created this image using my Canon 5DmkIII and Canon 17-40mm f4 lens inside my Ikelite 5DmkIII housing with an 8″ dome port. I processed the RAW file using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS6, plus I applied Nik Color Efex 4‘s white balance filter.

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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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Steller Sea Lion 18

Steller Sea Lion 18

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As I have been recently editing all of my older trips, I keep finding surprising gems like this image from my last scuba diving trip to Hornby Island, BC in January 2009. If you are a diver you absolutely need to plan a trip to dive with the Steller sea lions at Hornby Island. They are incredibly curious and playful underwater. Many people who are familiar with my work might recall that another one of my Steller sea lion images was awarded 2nd Place in the Underwater category in the 2010 ICPA. Anyway, here is another cute sea lion admiring its reflection on the front of my dome port. I created this image using my Canon 5D and 17-40mm f4 lens in my old Ikelite 5D housing with 8″ dome port and using dual DS160 strobes. It is a single exposure which was mostly processed in Aperture 3.0. Photoshop CS5 was used for some minor adjustments and to clone out particles floating in the water.

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