Tue - August 19, 2003

SH-SH-SH-SH-SHARK!



A Soupfin Shark cruising the kelp forest

After a day and a half of shooting video in the pristine kelp forests I decided it was time for a change. I put my D100 in its housing , left the strobes in the case, and jumped in to work on some available light still shots. I shot the cathedral-like formations of the kelp fronds for about 20 minutes and then wandered off to see what else I could see. I was swimming up a canyon when I just happened to look behind me - just in time to see a shark coming up from behind. I whipped around, pointed the camera without looking, and fired off a shot. Unfortunately, the shark saw me just as I saw him and bolted away. Thanks to the magic of digital photography I could see that I had succeeding in taking an overexposed, out of focus, photo of the tail of a shark. I followed it off into the kelp and eventually it came back. I got off several good shots this time until I exhaled and the noise of my bubbles spooked it away again. By then I was out of air and I headed back to the boat to refill my tank and switch over to video. While I was waiting, other divers came back with reports of more sharks. They appeared to hanging around. Armed with video, I swam back to the area where they had last been seen.

It was probably 15-20 minutes before I found them again. It was in a clearing in 15 feet of water. Two or three sharks would cruise in and out and around the clearing. I shot video while holding my breath until I thought my head would explode. My patience and the headache paid off. I ended up with a about 9 minutes of video and a great ending to the day.

Posted: 03:00 PM     Read More  

Mon - August 18, 2003

Diving the Southern Islands



Garibaldi guarding their territory among the palm kelp

My first limited load trip in what seems to be ages. For those unfamiliar with the term "limited load", it is a trip aboard the Vision (of the Truth Aquatics fleet) in which booking is limited to 25 passengers (hence the name) on a boat that can hold 40. The food is better and the have someone (me) available to process slide film. Those features alone make the trip nice. The added bonus for this trip is that the destination is the Southern Channel Islands (San Clemente, Santa Barbara, and Catalina) home of clear, warm water and beautiful kelp.

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Tue - July 29, 2003

Back at Sea



Detail of an Anemone, Santa Cruz Island

I realize the higher education is important and that it is somethings that the proverbial "they" can never take away from you. However, if I had known that the Masters Program at Brooks would have gotten in the way of my diving, I probably would have resolved myself to the cliché "ignorance is bliss" and been to take my ignorant hindquarters on more dive trips. Griping over. For the first time in almost a year I was able to go diving out at the Santa Barbara Channel Islands. Regarded by many as some of the best cold water diving any, the Channel Islands are home to sea lions, seals, dolphins, rays, a myriad of fishes, countless strange critters, and are located 23 miles from my front door (21 of those miles are across the ocean). This trip was as a guest of Brooks Institute's Undersea Class. The great thing about trips with the class is that they concentrate only on photography and therefore spend long periods of time working one area. The classes are always aboard the Truth , part of the Truth Aquatics fleet. The Truth is comfortable, has great food, a fun crew, and a film processing machine on board, everything a growing underwater photographer needs.

The conditions were decent. I was shooting mainly close-up work so I didn't care if the water was clear or not. I shot some cool macro video shots of hermit crab faces and some interesting still detail shots of anemones like the one above. Hopefully it won't be so long before I can get back out there.

Of course, the trip wasn't all work:

Eric, one of the crew members, provided free suplexes to anyone interested


Posted: 06:35 PM     Read More  

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