Friday, August 27, 2010
diagonal lines are strong compositional elements for u/w imagery
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Lemon Shark
In 2007, I was in Tonga, on a humpback whale trip with underwater photographers Mark Strickland and Tim Rock. During the week we had dinner a few times with Mike Neumann, the owner of Beqa Adventure Divers in Pacific Harbor Fiji. Known as BAD divers, this operation offers one of the most famous shark dives in the world where divers can expect to see as many as 6 or 7 species of sharks on a single dive. http://www.fijisharkdive.com/
Up to this point in my diving career of 10,000 plus dives, I had not fed animals in order to get a photograph. I felt it changed their natural behavior. So during during dinner I listened to the conversation and asked a lot of questions.
I learned that the dive shop owners had a part in creating a 30 mile long marine reserve and that fishing was not allowed. The thinking being that in order to study and sustain all the shark species its a good idea to protect the entire ecosystem. Since the reserve limited the fishing rights of the local villagers, the dive shop pays the village for every diver coming in to the reserve.
I have written more about this experience and it will be published soon on the http://www.uwphotographyguide.com/
To join me on diving and photography adventures in Hawaii, Fiji, or Tonga please check out my site www.douglasjhoffman.co
Friday, August 20, 2010
Free Lunch
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Natural frames to draw viewers eye into an image
This compositional technique has dual purposes. First it can add a great deal of depth, especially if the frame selected is connected to the main subject. Second, it has the affect of making the scene more appealing.
Perhaps the most common way of framing an image on the reef is to look for areas where their is a ledge, overhand, or coral formation that extends around, under, or over the subject. This image of a Moray Eel has a natural frame of coral reef around it. The out of focus foreground serves to draw the viewer directly to the Eye of the eel.
The benefits of framing photographs include:
1. Gives context.
2. Gives images a sense of depth.
3. Leads the eye towards main focal point.
4. Intrigues viewer.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
tridents trumpet feasting on Clown of Thorns Starfish
Sometimes when diving I get to see bizarre glimpses of nature at work. On this particular dive I got to see what appeared to be an alien creature eating a venomous Crown of Thorns Starfish. As it turns out it was a Tridents Trumpet Shell feasting away on the starfish. This species of starfish is eating coral reefs around the word and deserves in my opinion to be eaten alive. Thats what's happening in this image and I call it poetic justice.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Frog fish face
I went diving today at Molokini and the wreck of the St. Anthony. It was during the second dive I saw this frogfish. I had a 105 mm lens that was really about 150 mm when you factor in the size of my digital sensor. The frog fish was the size of a small pumpkin, so I decided to concentrate on just the fishes face.