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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
41 more people added me in the time it took to write this post. ↩
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.
Note that I do not really use Google+, yet, so if you interact with me in that social environment, I may not respond. I’m in evaluation mode. I have tried to import my connections via the various methods out there, and Google+ seems to fail constantly when I do anything in batch (e.g., add more than 10 people to a circle at once). ↩
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.
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.
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.
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!
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 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
Early February cherry blossoms in San Francisco. Mother nature is confused! 1 hr ago
I am fundamentally incompatible with people capable of having full-volume phone calls on planes. (at Logan International Airport) 20 hrs ago
@alefnull I had to look awhile to find it--it was in South Boston. Where I paahked my caah, the caahd didn't work.(but idears were valid) :) 20 hrs ago
This "Read Later" settings page from Tweetbot is awesome (for the services it supports) http://t.co/cmqRqiwW1 day ago
I heard a Boston person say "park." My Boston visit is complete. 1 day ago