A lightning storm under a sky full of stars. Raja Ampat, Indonesia.
The night sky is amazing here in Raja Ampat, Indonesia. Aside from the occasional live-aboard dive vessel, the Misool Eco-Resort is the only source of light pollution for miles and miles, and the lights at the resort aren’t bright enough to really cause problems. Point a camera at the sky on any clear night, and you get magic.
Large fruit bat in central Torajaland, Sulawesi, Indonesia
Most of the Wetpixel group traveling to Toraja are more used to photographing wildlife than they are photographing landscapes and people. Bernie, our guide, took us to a place where hundreds of large fruit bats hung on towering clumps of bamboo. I’m not sure what kind of bats they were, but they were likely Indonesian short-nosed fruit bats (Cynopterus titthaecheilus). A few of them were flying around during the day, and I snapped these shots with a Canon 7D and 70-200mm/2.8L lens @ 200mm (crop). (read more »)
4 skulls deep in a burial cave in Londa, Toraja (Sulawesi, Indonesia)
As an interlude between diving Ambon and Raja Ampat, 9 of us are on a 4-day tour of Toraja, which is up in the mountains of central Sulawesi, Indonesia. Traditional burials of the deceased here are in “hanging” graves on cliff faces, but we also were taken to see burial caves in a village called Londa. Although much of the caves were filled with old skulls and bones, we saw a coffin that had placed there earlier this year.
Toraja has a rich culture around death, and we spent much of our two full days here attending the funeral of a local man. 6 buffalos and 2 pigs were slaughtered at the event, and the meat was distributed to family members who aggregated for the 3-day celebration. We were invited in to one of the temporary shelters erected for the event, and feel honored to have been treated like family.
A pair of warty frogfish (Antennarius maculatus). The female is heavily laden with eggs.
We saw nearly 20 different frogfish while we were in Ambon, including warty frogfish, painted frogfish, striated frogfish and more. This female warty is full of eggs. You can see the tiny little male sitting on top of her.
A false clown anemonefish (Amphiprion ocellaris) aerates and cleans her eggs next to her host anemone. Ambon, Indonesia.
Most seasoned underwater photographers are inexplicably drawn to photograph anemonefish even though they already have hundreds of pictures of them. It is extremely difficult to get an image of an anemonefish that someone else hasn’t already captured. I took this shot with the INON insect-eye lens, which allowed me to capture the tiny fish and egg patch along with the anemone and background.
Before I leave for a trip, I always pre-charge all of my batteries. This is about half of what I normally charge. I can’t wait until everything is inductive or parasitic!
I’ve just disembarked from the M/V Orion, a luxury live-aboard dive vessel in the Maldives. My flight doesn’t leave until late tonight, so I’m hanging out at the Male Holiday Inn with Kozyndan, Sue and Tina Chen, and Scott Deis.
Trying to travel with both a 3D setup and a standard DSLR setup presents me with dozens of decisions each time I pack. I can’t wait until I can do away with the DSLR part and just have a 3D camera that can shoot both stills and video. No macro on this trip, and no extra strobes or strobe batteries. For redundancy within each system and macro or split capability (big dome port), I’d need to check a third bag.
Inspired by Rob Stewart’s self-cam footage in Sharkwater, I turned my camera around and took some footage of me swimming with whale sharks off of Isla Mujeres, Mexico. Shot with Canon 5D Mark II, Tokina 17mm/3.5 lens. 0260619
Rob was in Isla Mujeres the week before I was, and shot similar footage (although he dove down, whereas I stayed on the surface).
A couple weeks ago, I posted images from my first attempt to capture a whale shark silhouette with a sunball behind it. The attempt produced a decent photo.
The following few days presented many more opportunities to go after such a shot. (read more »)
Whenever I travel with Heidi, I rely on her to properly chronicle our experiences in words — and, of course, she didn’t disappoint. Heidi has just posted an in-depth trip journal from our time with the whale sharks in Isla Mujeres. I’m off to read it!
The hundreds of whale sharks that aggregate off of Isla Mujeres each year are here in a massive feeding frenzy. Their food are the eggs of bonito, which are released in huge quantities during spawning events in July and August. During our hours in the water each day with the sharks, our wetsuits act like egg collectors; by the end of the day, we have eggs all over our skin. Nathalie was nice enough to allow us to photograph eggs on her arm. She makes a great skin model.
It has been extremely difficult to capture the scale of the whale shark (Rhincodon typus) migration off of Isla Mujeres. Underwater, one can only snap a still photo of 4-5 sharks at the most, and my 11-shark video sequence was the best I could do. From the tuna tower of the boat, hundreds of sharks are visible, but the ones in the distance are hard to make out in a still photo at web resolution.
We’re going up in the air today to try to capture something that really shows the scale of the migration. The sharks are dwindling in number by the day because bonito spawn on the lunar cycle, but hopefully, we will come back with something compelling!
This is an attempt to show the number of whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) in the water during the aggregation in Isla Mujeres. I only wish it were possible to show the hundreds more around me!
We had in excess of 500 whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) at Isla Mujeres today in perfectly clear skies and mirror-flat water. I am speechless… but not speechless enough to try to upload some video (the internet is fast enough tonight for me to get a few videos online).
Click through for 3D version of the video, plus a bonus video of Heidi Connal swimming with a “botella” (bottle) — a whale shark that is vertical in the water gulping water without moving (well, it rotates, but it stays in the same place). (read more »)
A whale shark (Rhincodon typus) feeds in a bonito spawning event off of Isla Mujeres, Mexico
There’s no other way to put it: our first day of photographing the whale shark aggregation off of Isla Mujeres, Mexico, was absolutely epic. Within an hour of leaving port, we found a group of over 300 whale sharks, all feeding constantly on the huge concentration of fish eggs in the water. I’m exhausted now and don’t have time to process and video (I’ve been shooting both 2D video with the Canon 5D Mark II and 3D video with my custom rig), but I can at least present a few photos (for now — more later, including 3D, slow-motion whale shark feeding!). (read more »)
Our group has transferred to Isla Mujeres from Puerta Aventura and has just finished our first day of photographing the whale shark aggregation that is here feeding on bonito spawn.
3D video workflow has proven to be the downfall of my relatively-new MacBook Pro, and so I am unable to show you any new video at this point. I have a 1:36 video that is ready to show, but uploading is proving to be difficult from my connection here in Mexico.
Cave diver at Cenote Chac-Mool, Mexico
Instead, I’ll leave you with 4 images taken during my 2 dives with a still camera. These images were taken at Cenote Kulkulkan and Cenote Chac-Mool. (read more »)
It’s in my blood.
Whale shark aggregation off of Isla Mujeres
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