Back to photo’s this week, and once again the stock for this one has been provided by our friend Elisabeth Lauwerys from Oceans Below. Proving that she’s just as skilled at still shots as video, Liz has captured some amazing macro images of some of our smaller reef inhabitants and critters.
Reading this and wondering what on earth we are on about with the term ‘Macro’? In a nut shell, macro photography refers to the art of capturing close up shots of small things. This is a skill that underwater photographers need to hone in order to catch miniature moments of action – like the male pink anemone fish you see popping his head out of his home to ensure his precious eggs are not being preyed upon by an opportunistic predator. Macro photography is a challenge underwater, as not only is your subject matter very small, but they also tend to move around a lot, and the photographer themselves can often be getting swayed by water movement. So it takes both patience and practice to achieve stunning shots like these. Thank you Liz!
It’s been a rather beautiful week here on Koh Tao, with baking hot sunshine and clear blue skies. Some days a light breeze came as a welcome relief, and for the most part caused no more problems than a gentle surface ripple.
This week we visited Chumphon Pinnacle, which unlike the shallower site on this week’s dive schedule, is better suited to wide angle photography as it is so teaming with life. Lion Fish, Giant Groupers and schools of Snapper, Trevally and Barracuda all converge around the impressive granite formations that rise form the sea bed to form this beautiful dive site.
For our shallower dives, we took our divers to Japanese Gardens, Junkyard Reef and Mango Bay. Both Japanese Gardens and Mango Bay are firm favourites with newer divers on PADI Discover Scuba Diving programmes and PADI Open Water Diver courses, as both have beautiful corals as well as expanses of sand in which to build confidence and practice skills. And everyone loves Junkyard reef. It’s an artificial dive site and a perfect fun diving location for those who want to see something a bit different on their dive. As well as all of the unique structures built from recycled waste items, this site is also home to a number of marine species not commonly sighted anywhere else on the island – such as Strapweed Filefish and ‘Kevin’, the notorious Giant Puffer Fish! Plus of course Liz was able to find us some more amazing macro specimens, like this goby fish and mantis shrimp.
Join us for more underwater imagery and diving info next week. Don’t forget you can follow Oceans Below on instagram @oceans_below
