There are those that dive frequently and enjoy searching the ocean and the reefs for new things. More often than not they look for things that are large and impressive. Sharks, turtles, rays and shoals of brightly coloured fish. But there is a group that are fascinated by the small things, the things that most of us just dive past. It is only once you begin to understand what it is you are looking for do you then try and understand how to find it.
I had been shooting macro on land for some time and I finally ended up giving way to temptation and purchased a port for the housing to be able to shoot macro underwater. With camera and housing in hand i ventured to Chowder Bay near Mosman, Sydney where there is a pier that stretches out into the ocean. You will always find fisherman on the pier trying their luck for a decent sized catch. On the legs of the pier and along the edges of the pier are shark nets that all are home to the Whites Seahorse and the Pot-Bellied Seahorse. This is where my macro journey started. I had recently seen a number of posts of the Sydney Pygmy Pipehorses (Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri). Mesmorised by their small size, colourful bodies and the difficulty it is to find them I wanted to take up the challenge to find them.
Researching the Pygmy Pipehorse showed that they were more prevalent in the Botany Bay area and in particular Bare Island near La Peruse. I have dived Bare Island a number of times but none as a photographer. I did my Poseidon Rebreather course there a number of years ago so was somewhat familiar with it. Checking the tide charts and the swell, I made the decision to drive south, across the Harbour Bridge and onto the dive site.
Over the course of 3 weeks I saw a huge variety of nudibranchs that I added to my collection but no Pygmy Pipiehorses. Here are a couple of the nudibranchs I saw during these dives.
I reached out to Kim Dinh, an expert in finding the seemingly smallest of critters and sought advice. She advised "you just pick a rock and stare until you see something moves differently, then look closer." It does sound like mission impossible, but I tried it but still to no avail. Other experienced macro photographers also chose Kurnell, near Cronulla. I packed my kit up and with a day off work on the Friday before Christmas I headed down there. I have never dived there so was driving through the National Park trying to see where the dive sites were but couldn't find them. I turned the car around thinking i was well past where i should be. As I headed back i saw a car to the side of the road and a gentleman with twin tanks in his car. I pulled over to seek directions and was pleased to see it was Andrew Trevor-Jones. I was friends on Facebook with Andrew but never formally met. It was many of his photos that inspired me to look for them. He gave me a wealth of information on the sites, entry and exit points and some underwater landmarks to keep an eye out for. Information in my head, kitted up and dived The Steps. If I get at least one image that I think is a keeper for the collection I am happy. This dive didn't get me any Pygmy Pipehorses but it did get me this nudibranch.
On the Saturday, I headed to Kurnell, this time with dive buddy, Pete McGee. We planned to do the Leap and drift down to The Steps. The Steps gets its name from, yes you guessed it, a big set of steps that rise from the ocean rocks up the side of the cliff. Even writing this my legs hurt. Its a lung buster of a climb.
We headed over the boulders taking more of a northerly direction which meant we had spent a fair amount of time at 20+m. For me this is the best part of a rebreather as I am breathing blended nitrox to optimise my non-decompression time, but Pete was on air and his no deco period came a bit too quickly. We did find a couple of Weedy Sea Dragons that Pete got to shoot, whilst I found these two Pteraeolidia ianthina variants. These are known to divers as 'Blue Dragons'. There are heaps of them around, but this the first time I have seen the variant on the right of the image and the way they were positioned was perfect composition for the shot.
Sunday came around and we met at a more leisurely 9am. The sun was up and it was forecast to be a stinking hot day. The talk in the car park was about water temperature. Its been a cold spring with water temperature often not over 16 degrees. One diver commented that yesterday it was 19 degrees, which i raised an eyebrow at, as even with my dry suit on, it felt colder than that. Andrew was in a semi-dry suit, so thermal protection was going to be more of an issue for him and he kitted up with 19 degrees in mind. For those that are not divers, when you get cold, theres nothing worse, you want to stay under, but you shiver, your mind wanders elsewhere and you can get hypothermic so you need to be careful not to push it too far. Once we kept into the water, signalled to defend we headed North West to the sand line and to the boulders with sponges, soft corals and more life. Each boulder has its own charm and activity so theres no exact science to finding Pygmy Pipehorses. They can be around weeds. sponges literally anything so you have to find a boulder and begin the search. Andrew was the eyes, he has experienced in knowing the areas best to look and wasn't long before he signalled to me that there were 2. I approached with excitement, looking at where he pointed and then confused when i couldn't see anything. I shined my torch, and relaxed as i adjusted my eyes. Then, I started to see, the surge moved the weed and as it moved you could see the little figure sway just after it. Seeing it is the first stage, then you put the viewfinder to your eye and have to find it again. I switched my main light off and my strobe light on, its got a red filter which seems to be less invasive. Once i had the strobe light on the subject and noting the area around it, I worked the subject to the focus area, I knew my setting were pretty much there as I took test shots beforehand. ISO 200, 1/250, f9 with 2 strobes at 45 degrees to the subject and well advanced of the port. Once I got the images, we then found another boulder with 3 more and then another with 2 more. Andrew was getting low on air and cold so we split up meeting on the shore 15 mins later. Whilst its mission accomplished to find them and get the images, you then have to go home and process them. You hope you nailed it, focus is everything and with the surge, your buoyancy and the subject all moving, you risk missing focus on the key area, the eye. Pretty stoked how they came out.
Now that I have achieved the shots I wanted its easy to find something new. I don't think my journey with these amazing little critters is finished, i want to be able to train my eye to find them on my own, as these skills are essential for all macro photography. It about breaking shape, colour, movement and texture from its surroundings.
There are also a large number of anglerfish here too, which are always fun to find and take images of. This one is a red-fingered anglerfish (Porophryne erythrodactylus). I look forward to the next series of images of these and the painted anglerfish too
