Acro-anglerobics

Part of diving and photography is to understand the actions of the subjects you are looking to get images of. For some its fairly obvious that its a mating ritual. Take the cuttlefish for example, they dance around, flash some colours and get jiggy with it. Whilst their appendages may not be human you get the idea of whats going on..

But coming across this striate anglerfish doing a one arm handstand in a sponge, you wonder what was going on its mind. There's no missus anglerfish nearby, so perhaps he's just showing off or keeping trim for when she does come along.

The one below was going for a little walk, then began to lean forward on its front legs and kick its back legs in the air. If you have ever seen a friend 'do the worm' on the dance floor, then its kinda like that. 

Whatever they are doing its pretty amusing to watch.

Anglers below the anglers

Chowder Bay in Mosman, NSW is a small beach with a pier in Clifton Gardens. The pier has shark nets to section off an area for swimmers to be able and enjoy the water without fear of man-eating sharks. I do say this very much tongue in cheek but Sydney harbour does have a number of bull sharks, including a relatively recent attack on Paul De Gelder.

The net became encrusted in soft coral and sponge growths and a new home to whites seahorses. Above the surface, fishing is permitted on the ocean side of the pier. Its popularity with fishermen seems to be increasing with a multi-cultural contingent setting up numerous rods looking to catch dinner. Under the water you often find the heads and filleted remains of their catches.

I imagine the words of David Attenborough saying "but nothing goes to waste in the oceans". It seems there is a small ecosystem that lives off the remains of other fish, which in turns attracts predators to feed. When you compare the main pier with the pier on the other side of the bay, you see the increase in species and numbers of fish that feed on the free meals.

I always look out for anglerfish, some of them you see by the wreck in middle of the bay. Others are in and around the pier. Its been a while since I had seen them and after seeing other people images on social media, you start to question your eyesight. Finally it happened, I found the striate anglerfish I was looking for. 

The moment you the angler you need to ensure that the current is working with you as the silt on the bottom is prone to kick up with slightest movement and the hairy nature of some anglers leave them prone to have the muck stick to them like velcro. Generally they are hiding away under a piece of sponge, but not Usain Bolt, this guy was a sprinter but rather than running away from me, he ran towards me. It could have been the focus light or the reflection of himself in the dome port, but either way he was on a mission. A slight bit of surge would leave him rocking from side to side with bis hair swaying in the water. He regained his balance and then decided it was time for some fishing. The lure on his head came out and started to dangle it in the hope that he got a nibble. 

Whilst he didn't actually get any dinner, you can see in the image below how they open their mouth wide extending it forward and with a big gulp or sucking motion, inhale their meal.

The amazing thing with anglerfish is their diversity. Whilst they sit under the same family (Antennarius striates) and yet they differ significantly which is what makes them so cool.

From the little hairless yellow/orange ones

To the bigger but less colourful (and very hard to find) grey ones.

To the bigger redder ones, its really hard to know whether they start off their lives small orange and bald but then begin to transform in colour and texture with age, or whether they just happen to have their own genetics that separate them evolutionary. Like most creatures in the ocean, dollars to study them in detail are limited, so a lot of information is from the people that dive and record them at the weekends. 

With all things photography and diving, there is always one holy grail that I am yet to get a good image of and thats the black angler. I have seen and had the opportunity to photograph plenty, some too big for the 100mm  macro lens I use with viz too poor to get a decent image. Others where the angler is so black (and not hairy) but sucks every ounce of light you blast at it, laughing at your feeble attempts to get contrast and finally the time when you think you got the shot. You check the histogram, zoom in and everything is perfect. High giving yourself you move onto another subject only to find when you download it that some gremlin got into your camera and replaced your perfect image with one that is terrible. I am yet to work out how that happens, but its always with black anglers. Until next time..............

Battle of the blues

It was 1999 when I first returned to Sydney, Australia after my parents moved to England around 1980. I spent about 4 months diving the East coast of Australia from Sydney up to Cairns. It was during my dive master course with Prodive that I first encountered the blue bottle jellyfish, known in Europe as the Portuguese Man-o-war (Physalia physalis). It was a windy day with a swell coming into Gordon's Bsy. Trying to get students that resemble a baby giraffe standing for the first time to get into the water with their dive equipment on. Their balance and poise terrible, not listening to instruction and to add to the drama a heap of these blue jellyfish being swept in. I remember using my fins to push them away to try and create a corridor for the students to get in but got one around my tank neck that stung me. 

Fast forward to 2006 and I (finally) moved back to Sydney and in addition to diving decided to try my luck at surfing. When the swells hit from the NE we got good wave action and some good rides, but low and behold we also got blue bottles.

Fast forward in time again to 2018 and I wanted to get an image of a blue bottle. Whilst highly annoying when you are in the water they have a beauty which is strange for such a simple organism. Matty Smith put them firmly in the public eye with his epic image of an above/below composition which needless to say won awards.

I needed to get my bluebottle on!

I started shooting more macro in the last 2 years and sold my soul to the nudibranch devil. I want different shots, new species and the chance to increase my collection. I was reading about a nudibranch that floated on the surface and ate the blue bottles. Now thats a cool nudi! They have a blue colour to them as well as they feed on the blue bottles storing stinging cells within its own tissues as defense against predation. Is it better to get stung by the jellyfish or the nudi that eats the jellyfish?

This weekend we had the strong E/NE swell and winds so I decided to get my gear, an old screw top supplements jar and a garden hand shovel and headed to Collaroy beach. It wasn't long before I found the blue bottles, but only came across the single Glaucus atlanticus (blue serpent nudi). Once I had these specimens that had washed up packed away I intended to head to a rock pool but this time of the year, people are out till late, so that was off the cards. I decided to try North Narrabeen lagoon. It gets closed to the open ocean and was hoping that it would be both clear and relatively free of people. Again, not quite so, but I did manage to find some space and began taking images (to much amusement of passers-by) using my Canon 5D MKIII and 100mm macro in a Nauticam housing with 2 x Inon strobes. I tried and tried but with very limited results. I needed to pack up and get home as we were going out for dinner, but I kept thinking on how to get the shot I wanted. I realised I needed to be more prepared for that shot but I wanted to optimise my specimens and get an image.

I got home and poured my sea water, blue bottle, blue serpent nudi cocktail into a black container and went for a topside image, attached my macro ring flash and started shooting as soon as we got back from dinner. A nice controlled environment with clear water is what a studio shot is all about. I used a low angle with a reduction of -1 exposure on the flash to keep reflection low and ensure I wasn't illuminating the bottom of the container. 

A day with the seahorses

Seahorses are an iconic macro image and I was keen to be able to join the club and get some images myself. Listening to advice from those in the know I headed down to Chowder Bay in Mosman. "They're on the nets, you can't miss them" people would say, but for the unfamiliar eye used to shooting wide angle it was more challenging than expected. Fast forward a few years and many many dives under the belt I see them on most dives down there nowadays.

The dive today i encountered a number of them but in various different places under the pier so keep your eyes peeled and you see them too.

The image above was taken on the nets f5.6, 1/250, ISO 100 using a 100mm macro lens. I had a single Inon Z240 strobe with custom snoot (also know as cheap plumbing pipe from Bunnings). Opening the aperture you need to ensure the focus is pin sharp on the eye as the depth of field is shallow. The background becomes much lighter so you turn the strobe down.

The second image was taken at the base of a pylon and shows the seahorse feeding. There were other divers in the area and the substrate is prone to kick up and leave the area a cloud of muddy water. I closed the aperture to f14, 1/250, ISO 100 and extended the single strobe a lot further forward as I needed to increase the power and reduce the distance to the subject. With backscatter minimised I was able to illuminate the subject solely and avoid the background which is not that photogenic.

Whites Seahorse (Hippocampus whitei)

I wanted to play around with the strobes for the next image so i kept the same subject but switched to a side lighting technique. The strobe arm was forward like the image above but at 90 degrees to the subject so there are going to be areas of shadow that I hoped would create a mood lighting.

Whites Seahorse (Hippocampus whitei)

Next one on the list was found on the newer shark nets. They curl their little tails around the net and gently sway with the wave action. It can be challenging when the swell is up as the focus becomes a pain, but today was easy. I opted for an open aperture again f5.6, 1/250, ISO 100 and was lucky as it was nicely positioned facing forward and next to a colourful piece of soft coral that was growing on the net. 

Whites Seahorse (Hippocampus whitei)

The final image today was taken over by the sea grass patch in the shallows near the shark nets. Its tail was wrapped around sea grass and trying to the get an image was tricky as the focusing jumped between the sea grass and the subject. It took a few shots to get it right. I wanted to have a bit of depth of field to show the sea grass but not too much that it was distracting. I set the aperture to f7.1, 1/250, ISO 100

So next time you go to Chowder Bay, there's more seahorses to see than just the ones on the nets, check the pylons, around the pylons and in the sea grass too.