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.

Atlantic Spotted Dolphin 5

Atlantic Spotted Dolphin 5

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I’ve been working at home for almost 2 months, which is making me pretty antsy to get back outdoors, but especially underwater. So, I thought that I would share another one of my favorite Atlantic spotted dolphin images from my liveaboard expedition to the Bahamas last summer. I’ve previously described how athletically difficult it is to take an underwater picture like this. Technically, all I do is put my camera in aperture priority mode and pick an aperture & ISO that will give me a fast enough shutter speed to stop the action. Of course, the whole point of this trip was to spend time swimming in the wild with these graceful creatures. I created this image using my Canon 5dmkII and 17-40mm f4 lens with a +3 diopter in my Ikelite 5DmkII housing with 8″ dome port. This image is a single exposure which required a bit of processing to remove the cyan cast of the water using Aperture 3.0 and Photoshop CS5.

Grand Bahama Bank Clouds 1

Grand Bahama Bank Clouds 1

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The purpose of my July visit to the Grand Bahama Banks was to swim with wild Atlantic spotted dolphins, but I could not resist photographing the brilliant blue water and tropical storm clouds when we did not have any dolphins around. While the Dolphin Dream was motoring, I carefully braced my camera against the side of the ship at the lowest point that I could stand and took a lot of pictures hoping that trial and error would yield a modestly successful image. I was also hoping that I would get lucky and record a moment with lightning striking the water beneath the tropical storm, but I did not succeed. I also saw my first water spout! I should have shot it right then and there, rather than run back inside the main cabin to let everyone else know, because by the time I got back outside a few moments later it was already gone. I created this image with my Canon 5DmkII, Carl Zeiss 28mm f2 ZE lens, Singh-Ray LB Warming polarizer, and 2-stop Hard Graduated Neutral Density filter. This image is a single-exposure which required minimal processing using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5.

Atlantic Spotted Dolphin 9

Atlantic Spotted Dolphin 9

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This is another one of my favorite images from July when I spent 6 days on board the Dolphin Dream photographing Atlantic spotted dolphins in the Bahamas. The trip exceeded my expectations and I was incredibly fortunate to have so many wonderful encounters with the dolphins. I’m sure that all of my non-underwater photography friends can appreciate the beauty of this image, but I cannot state emphatically enough how hard it is to create an underwater image like this. Swimming as hard as I can, I am usually totally out of breath by the time I am in the right spot. Before I can dive beneath the surface to take a picture, I have to grab one last breath of air. Once I am underwater, I then hope that a dolphin swims close enough to me to photograph with my wide-angle lens. Most of the time, the image doesn’t happen, but in this case everything came together. I like this image because of the dolphins reflection on the surface. I used my Canon 5dmkII and 17-40mm f4 lens with a +3 diopter in my Ikelite 5DmkII housing with 8″ dome port. This image required a bit of processing to remove the cyan cast of the water using Aperture 3.0 and Photoshop CS5.

Atlantic Spotted Dolphin 2

Atlantic Spotted Dolphin 2

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This another of my favorite Atlantic spotted dolphin pictures from my recent trip to the Bahamas. I did not have a lot of opportunities to photograph groups of dolphins all at once. However, these 3 yielded a great image as they swam underneath me and gracefully turned towards the surface. I would have preferred fully rotating my camera into the vertical position, but it happened so quickly while underwater and I barely clipped their tails. I love the symmetry of the dolphins and the apparent glee on their faces. I created this image with my Canon 5dmkII and 17-40mm f4 lens with a +3 diopter in my Ikelite 5DmkII housing with 8″ dome port. This image is a single exposure which required a bit of processing to remove the cyan cast of the water using Aperture 3.0 and Photoshop CS5.

Atlantic Spotted Dolphin 1

Atlantic Spotted Dolphin 1

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For many years now, my Alaska photography ambitions have conflicted with my underwater photography ambitions. However, this summer I made time in my busy schedule to visit the Bahamas and swim with wild Atlantic spotted dolphins. I joined a trip offered by Captain Scott of Dolphin Dream the first week of August and was not disappointed. Certainly, wildlife photography is never guaranteed, but through persistence and sheer luck I was able to photograph some beautiful portraits of the dolphins over the course of my week-long trip. During the dolphin encounters, they often came close enough to touch while gracefully playing amongst our group of snorkelers. I typically swam on the outside of the group, so that I could photograph the dolphins without people in the scene. I created this image during the first few exciting days of the trip by diving down 20′ towards the sandy bottom as this dolphin curiously swam by and checked me out. I used my Canon 5dmkII and 17-40mm f4 lens with a +3 diopter in my new Aquatech 5DmkII housing with 8″ dome port. This image is cropped from the original and required a bit of processing to remove the cyan cast of the water using Aperture 3.0 and Photoshop CS5.