Atlantic Spotted Dolphin 5

Atlantic Spotted Dolphin 5

Posted on

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.

Kuliak Pink Salmon 1

Kuliak Pink Salmon 1

Posted on

I spent 3 long days attempting to photograph brown bears fishing underwater while visiting Kuliak Bay. I did not succeed. However, I had 6 opportunities where a bear sniffed the back of my underwater camera rather than the front. If I were a cartoon, I would have had one of those bubbles over my head with something like !@#$%^&%$#@* inside. Oh, well, I can try again in a few years. With my underwater camera positioned in the river all day, I took a lot of pictures of the salmon swimming in front of it. This is my favorite image of the mostly pink salmon with a few sockeye mixed in. I really like the reflection of the salmon on the surface of the water as well as the beautiful green color. I created this image with my Canon 5DmkII and 17-40mm f4 lens inside my Aquatech 5DmkII housing with a Aquatech 8″ wide-angle dome port which I remotely triggered with a PocketWizard in an Aquatech PocketWizard housing. This image is a single-exposure which required minimal processing using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5.

Atlantic Spotted Dolphin 9

Atlantic Spotted Dolphin 9

Posted on

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

Posted on

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

Posted on

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.

Humpback Whale Breach 103

Humpback Whale Photography Tour

Posted on

I’m teaming up with renowned underwater photographer Tony Wu to offer the ULTIMATE humpback whale photography adventure in 2012. The first half of our tour will begin in Southeast Alaska, where I have spent 5 years photographing humpback whales, followed by a two week break, and then finishing in the Kingdom of Tonga, where Tony has spent over 10 years photographing humpbacks. This is a unique, immersive experience to witness and photograph a wide range of humpback whale behaviors in two hemispheres.

Starting in Juneau, Alaska, we will use our expedition yacht and inflatable boats to photograph northern hemisphere humpback whales bubble-net feeding, breaching, and other behaviors. After our short break, we will regroup in Tonga for in-water encounters with southern hemisphere humpbacks where we’ll be looking for mothers with babies, singers, heat runs, mating, and other calving-related activities. Seeing the whales with your own eyes beats watching a TV documentary!

This trip is for a small, exclusive group of 6 guests who will be able to travel to both locations with guides Jon Cornforth and Tony Wu to photograph a wide range of humpback whale behaviors. Our core idea is to share a once-in-a-lifetime experience with the same 6 guests in order to provide the most comprehensive humpback whale photography opportunities. If someone is interested in only one part of this combined trip, we will automatically put them on our waitlist, but we will only fill single slots after we have prioritized spaces for guests interested in both trips.

For more information, please visit my Humpback Whale Photography Tour page.

Skunk Anemonefish 1

Skunk Anemonefish 1

Posted on

What else needs to be said about clownfish, other than they are iconic and adorable? There are also many different types of clownfish, like this skunk anemonefish. As my regular readers can probably tell, I had a plethora of photographic opportunities while scuba diving during my visit to the Misool Ecoresort. This yellow anemone was aesthetically appealing to me and the skunk anemonefish was less agitated than most of the false clown anemonefish that I photographed. Heck, this one even has a slightly less dour frown on its face. Do I even sense a smile because it knew that I was going to make it famous? I created this image using my Canon 5DmkII and 100mm f2.8 macro lens in my Ikelite 5DmkII housing with dual Ikelite DS160 strobes set on TTL. This image required minimal processing using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5.

False Clown Anemonefish 23

False Clown Anemonefish 23

Posted on

I left the Misool Ecoresort in Indonesia 3 weeks ago today, but it still feels like it was just yesterday. It was probably my favorite photography trip that I have ever done and I can not wait to return. I’ll likely lead a photo tour there in the fall of 2012. I am only about 1/3 of the way through editing my images, but I already have a few favorites. Take this comical picture of a juvenile clown anemonefish. I spent a lot of time photographing these aggressive little fish during 2 weeks of scuba-diving. They constantly darted around, hiding in the anemone’s tentacles, but every once in a while I photographed a perfect moment where the fish had clear eye contact with the camera. Unfortunately, I could not do much about it’s “frowning” face, but hopefully it contributes to the humor of this image. I looked for patterns of consistent form and texture of the tentacles and waited until the fish swam into the most aesthetically pleasing sections. Also, I was surprised to learn that this type of clownfish, which most people recognize from the movie Finding Nemo, is actually called a false clown anemonefish. A true clown anemonefish has more pronounced black bars on it’s body. I created this image using my Canon 5DmkII and 100mm f2.8 macro lens in my Ikelite 5DmkII housing with dual Ikelite DS160 strobes set on TTL. This image required minimal processing using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5.

Boo West Soft Corals 2

Boo West Soft Corals 2

Posted on

Of all my photos that I created during my recent Indonesian adventure to the Misool Ecoresort, this is the one that I had most envisioned. Indonesia is well known for its spectacular reefs, and Raja Ampat is considered to have some of the most pristine in the world. I was not disappointed. Before my trip, I was anxious about my learning curve to create an image like this. I think that every photographer should try taking a picture outside of their comfort zone once in a while. I initially struggled with balancing an ambient light exposure with fill-flash from my powerful underwater strobes, but I overcame these limitations after my first few days of diving. Freeing myself from the technical aspects of underwater photography allowed me to focus on composition. Once I figured out where to look for soft corals on the side of boomies (underwater pinnacles), I was able to realize my creative vision. Clearly the focus of this image is the neon soft corals surrounded by tropical fish, but I added texture to an otherwise featureless blue background by angling my camera up towards the surface. The clouds in the sky above also added color. I find it interesting that clouds play an important role in underwater landscape photography just like they do above water. I created this image using my Canon 5DmkII and 17-40mm f4 lens with a +3 diopter in my Ikelite 5DmkII housing with dual DS160 strobes set to -3 power. This image required minimal processing using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5.

Batbitim Palm Tree Reflection 1

Batbitim Palm Tree Reflection 1

Posted on

During my recent journey to the Misool Ecoresort in Raja Ampat, Indonesia, my main ambition was underwater photography. I created most of my images while scuba diving at a depth of 10-20m. However, I made this dramatic image in the shallow water located between the dive center and restaurant. This beautiful tropical lagoon was composed of a white sand beach and teemed with baitfish and baby blacktip reef sharks. I had originally intended to photograph these creatures, but when I discovered the reflection of the coconut palm trees on the surface I turned my attention to photographing this instead. I was also drawn to the spectral refraction patterns on the sandy bottom, but the surface reflection is really where any good wide-angle underwater image can be found. I created this image without looking through my viewfinder through trial and error until I figured out how far back to angle my camera housing while it rested in the sand. I used my Canon 5DmkII and Canon 17-40mm f4 lens with a +3 diopter inside of my Ikelite 5DmkII housing with my 8″ dome port. This image required minimal processing using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5.