Hello, everyone. I’m back from the remote Eastern Fields of Papua New Guinea. We only had 6 days out there because two strong tropical storms moved into the area, but the diving was good (until we moved back to the coast).

My 4-week cough turned into a 6-week cough, so I only did 3-4 dives in the Eastern Fields. It was extremely frustrating, but I enjoyed being out on the ocean with a great group of people. Here’s the video slideshow I made for the group:

Music selection by kozyndan. End credits by me and Dan.

Tony Wu (my co-trip leader) has posted a fantastic write-up of the trip, and a Wetpixel thread is tracking more pictures and experiences.

As always, you can see the expeditions we run over at Wetpixel: http://wetpixel.com/expeditions

I went on a fun photowalk with Robert Scoble last Tuesday, where we gave him a chance to play with a pre-production Lytro Light Field Camera. Scoble posted a thoughtful summary of the photowalk and included a video interview of me, which you can see here in this post.

My most-published picture is a picture of a juvenile loggerhead turtle being released into the wild just off of Palm Beach, Florida. It is commonly referred to as “the screaming turtle“. According to Google, it is being used online in about 21,200 locations. One day, I will unleash an IP attorney to hunt down all unauthorized commercial use. I don’t care about the personal use, as long as people attribute me and leave my watermark on the picture (which many do not).

Hint: to see where your pictures are used, go to Google Images and drag a JPG into the search field!

Photos taken at Sizzler off of Lembata, Indonesia. See the larger version here.

Commensal Periclimenaeus storchi shrimp inside tunicate, originally uploaded by echeng.

This bright green Periclimenaeus storchi shrimp lives inside a large Didemnum molle tunicate. I can’t find it any of the critter ID books I own, so maybe someone out there can help me get an ID. We did a night dive in Alor, and many of the Didemnum molle tunicates contained critters living inside of them (I saw 2 different shrimps and an amphipod). All of the critters fled from lights, and getting this picture took over half an hour of careful planning and execution. Photo by Eric Cheng, taken with Canon 7D, 100mm macro lens, Nauticam underwater housing, Light & Motion Sola 600 focus light, 2 x Ikelite DS-125 strobes.

Update: this shrimp has been identified as a Periclimenaeus storchi. It isn’t a true snapping shrimp.

More info on this shrimp:
- http://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=612360
- http://www.chucksaddiction.com/car013.html

Pam and I went out on the water yesterday to photograph the Blue Angels, who flew for about an hour during Fleet Week festivities. A friend had invited us to enjoy the show from his incredible boat, which was stable enough for me to be able to use a tripod-mounted Canon 7D and 500mm f/4 lens. I’ve never photographed planes before—it was a lot of fun!

The full album is here: http://ech.cc/fleetweeksf

On Monday afternoon, I decided to use Google+ to post the slides of a talk I had just given at the Monterey Shootout 2011. I really like how pictures and videos are handled by Google+, and using it to present one of my talks (which are typically picture-heavy) seemed to be perfect.

On Tuesday, at 3:38PM, an underwater photographer named Elena Kalis shared my talk with her circles on Google+. At around 7pm, I uploaded 33 underwater pictures to my Scrapbook. At 9:47pm, Vic Gundotra shared a link to the album. At 10:04pm, Brian Rose did, as well. Sergey Brin left a few comments shortly after 11pm (Mr. Brin dabbles in underwater photography, himself). Robert Scoble picked up and shared the album at 12:32am.

At 12:56am, just 6 hours after I updated my scrapbook and 9 hours after Elena shared out the link to my talk, 1,430 people have me in their circles. 1,430 happens to be the exact number of Twitter followers I have. That’s right: it took me 2 days on Google+ to arrive at the same number of followers I attracted on Twitter in 1644 days.¹ Granted, I use Twitter as a broadcast service and tweet about all sorts of random things, but the reception to my photography over on Google+ has been nothing short of incredible. After spending a couple hours on the site tonight, it is obvious that the reception to ALL FORMS of photography at Google+ is fantastic, and that engagement levels are extremely high.

Methinks I will be spending some time over there. Want [https://plus.google.com/i/e8Qj9ye8oEM:H3n9d7n4n-M](an invite)? +Eric Cheng

Side note: What’s amusing is that this post will get picked up automatically by Facebook and Twitter, but not by Google+. I’m really looking forward to a time when Google+ gets integration with HootSuite and other social media aggregators.

Here are the slides from the 90-minute seminar I gave at Monterey Shootout 2011. I always create slides without many words, preferring to talk through the points spontaneously, but it may be useful to some folks out there. When I have more time, I’ll come back and add captions with notes about each of the points (and why I included specific pictures and videos).

On a side note, I have discovered that the photo and video player over at Google+ is excellent as a slideshow player on the web (as long as you do not require intra-slide interactivity).¹ I can mix still images / video and re-order slides, and the blacked-out “theater” (to steal the Facebook word for it) is pleasing and promotes real-time interaction.

Link: http://ech.cc/uwphototips

The Monterey Underwater Film Festival audience at the Golden State Theater. I took this picture as an opener to my presentation.

Tonight, I spoke at the Monterey Underwater Film Festival, along with Berkley White, Chuck Davis, Stephen Frink and Rick Rosenthal. The film festival, which was attended by approximately 725 enthusiastic audience members, took place at the Golden State Theater and was put on by NCUPS and Backscatter as part of the Monterey Shootout 2011.

The audience was incredible—very “live” and reactive! There was great energy in the air, which always makes an event a lot of fun to be a part of. I was honored to present alongside underwater-imaging pioneers who have decades of experience.

Speakers: Rick Rosenthal, Chuck Davis, Berkley White, Eric Cheng and Stephen Frink. Monterey Underwater Film Festival, September 10, 2011.

I flew to New York for a Friday meeting and ended up getting stuck here for a few days during Hurricane Irene, which prompted the first MTA shutdown from bad weather in history. While in New York, I have been generously hosted by Heidi—thank you, Heidi!

Luckily, the hurricane turned out to be rather mild, and we slept through the high winds and heavy rain, waking up to a calm day outside. The only signs of the hurricane were a bunch of downed trees and the folks whom had come out to photograph them. I put a few pictures up over at Flickr.

Performance artist Alice Newstead hangs herself from shark hooks at LUSH Cosmetics in San Francisco to draw attention to the plight of sharks and to garner support for AB 376, a proposed bill that will ban shark fins in California. Event organized and sponsored by LUSH Cosmetics and Shark Savers.

More information from Shark Savers:

• California AB 376 shark fin ban Mid-August update and action alert
• California AB 376 Talking Points

Photo gallery follows: (read more »)

We did two shark dives in Tahiti hosted by TOPDIVE-Bathys dive center. I’ve done shark dives all around the world, and was really impressed by the number of gray reef sharks in the area. We had approximately 50 gray reef sharks, a few black-tip reef sharks, and a couple lemon sharks. A tiger shark has been at the dive semi-regularly, but it didn’t show up for us.

Given that Tahiti is an easy, 8-hour flight from LAX, the shark dive at TOPDIVE-Bathys might be the most accessible dive with lots of sharks for those of us who live in California.

I’m told that the baited dive is both new and controversial here on the island, and interestingly, the Tahiti shark dive isn’t even highlighted on the TOPDIVE-Bathys website (but the Moorea shark dive is). But given the quality of the local shark dive, it will no doubt attract a good number of divers in the shark diving community.

Coco and James have posted the behind-the-scenes video from the Lytro photo shoot last week. My face is in the video for approximately 4 frames. ;)

Fakarava, French Polynesia

I haven’t been in the water since December—it’s the longest I’ve been dry in a decade. Obviously, the big reason I haven’t been in the water is that I’ve been busy in my role as Director of Photography at Lytro. Startup life and lots of time underwater do not seem to be compatible. :)

Tomorrow, I’m headed to French Polynesia with my buddies Don Kehoe and Dave Patchen. We’ll meet up with Fabrice Charleux of Plongeur.com for 10 days in Tahiti and Fakarava. I haven’t been to French Polynesia since an epic journey in 2005 with Douglas Seifert, Ron & Valerie Taylor, Mike McDowell, and others, and I’m really looking forward to being there again.

I’ve packed two Canon 7D bodies (thanks, Dan, for the loan of a body!), a Nauticam underwater housing, Ikelite strobes, 4 GoPro cameras in 2 underwater 3D GoPro housings, 2 Lytro prototype light field cameras, and a Fuji X100. That may seem like a lot, but it’s travelling light compared to what I often bring on photography trips.

Sharks, here we come!

Ren, Baby Kai, and Koci are all in the CNN piece on Lytro!

Hello, friends. Lytro is proud to have launched out of stealth mode last night! We are a light field camera company who will change the nature of photography and imaging. Light field cameras capture the entire light field, and not just a single 2-dimensional projection (which is what traditional cameras capture).

Here’s a sample living picture taken by my friend, Jason Bradley:

I’m excited that I can finally talk about what I’ve been doing for the last 9 months!

One of my friends wrote to me this morning to let me know that the screaming turtle has gone big time, showing up on Apple’s support website:

I wonder if I know the Apple employee who made the screenshot. To see it on Apple.com, go to “Copying personal photos and videos from iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to your computer” and click on “Mac: Transferring personal photos and video from your device to your Mac”.

Apple, send me a free iPad! ;)

I’m getting excited about the upcoming Wetpixel Whale Shark Aggregation trip! This photo was taken during last year’s aggregation and shows off the size difference between man and the biggest fish in the ocean.

Back in February, Sophie Laurenzi, a high school student in Memphis, TN, wrote me an email to ask whether she could recreate one of my photographs for an art project. She sent me a photo of the finished piece a few days ago; I love it!

Here’s the original photo, which I snapped while in Rangiroa, French Polynesia in 2005:

Great work, Sophie! (and, the expression is priceless)

• Panasonic Lumix GF1 Micro Four Thirds camera + lenses and accessories
  • Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1 Micro Four Thirds camera with 14-45mm lens. $550
    • Comes with: camera body, Lumix 14-45mm F3.5-5.6 lens, battery, charger, ac cable, av cable, strap, lens hood, lens storage bag, body cap, lens cap, lens rear cap, hot shoe cover, manuals, CD, and original box
  • Panasonic 14mm F2.5 Micro Four Thirds lens, with lens cap, rear cap, box. $270 SOLD
  • Panasonic 20mm F1.7 Micro Four Thirds lens, with lens cap, rear cap, box. $450 SOLD
  • Panasonic DMW-LVF1 Live View Finder, with case and box. $175
  • Qty 2: Panasonic DMW-BLB13 Battery for Panasonic GF1 and other G-series cameras. $30 each
• Canon PowerShot S95 digital camera w/box, extra battery, LCD protector (installed), and 4GB Kingston SD card. Good condition (visible nicks from use, and tiny dent in corner). $350
• Qty 1: Apple 85W MagSafe Power Adapter (from 17-inch MacBook Pro, but compatible with all MacBooks, MacBooks Pro, and MacBooks Air that use MagSafe). $60 each
• Apple 85W MagSafe Power Adapter with old-style connector (from 17-inch MacBook Pro, but compatible with all MacBooks, MacBooks Pro, and MacBooks Air that use MagSafe). $50
• Motorola MD681 5.8GHz cordless speakerphone and MD61 2nd cordless handset. $80
• ProClip device holder for iPhone 4 (without case—this one). New. $20
• 2GB KIT (2 x 1GB) DDR3 SDRAM Memory Module; 1333 MHz DDR3 PC3-10600 Unbuffered ECC; Pulled from Mid-2010 Mac Pro. $30
• Nintendo DS games:
  • The Legend of Zelda, Phantom Hourglass. $20
  • Castlevania, Portrait of Ruin. $25
• Playstation 2 games:
  • Katamari Damacy. $10
• Playstation 3 games:
  • Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. $12
  • Bioshock. $10
  • Grand Theft Auto IV. $12
• DVDs:
  • Stargate Atlantis, Season 2 (5 discs). $20
• Canon 7D, non-functional body (water damage—bottom of camera only), for parts. $25

For pickup in San Francisco or Mountain View; will ship in USA (buyer pays shipping). Contact me here, if you’re interested!