common dolphins week #2
Common dolphins and small bait ball, Wild Coast, South Africa
Nikon D300 + Nikkor 10.5mm, Pro One Dome port, strobes Sea&Sea YS-250 x 2
this image is not cropped, contrast and color correction in Adobe Lightroom
Location on Google Maps
Wikipedia reference
Dolphins are really popular icon due to their cuteness, intelligence and "ever-smiling" appearance. They appear in various visual forms and in different designs everywhere - toys, characters in various media, they used widely in advertisement since their friendliness and wide appeal does sell associated goods. No other sea creature has similar level of popularity - maybe penguins, but this is specific to Japan :-). This has one interesting implication for commercial underwater photographers which I experienced myself - dolphin images sell really well. In my case I think about 30% of all sales I make are with dolphin images. It is sometimes even frustrating that more complicated shots are more difficult to push than yet another happy dolphin picture... But on other hand it allows us to combine useful with pleasant and take more and more those dolphin shots every time we encounter them - these shots won't be wasted in vain ! :-)
And here is my very first common dolphin picture taken in 2008. That time it looked like really good achievement, but now it looks rather simplistic and bleak comparing to the shots I took later. However I'm sure even this simple picture has potential for media usage - because even simple dolphin images do sell ! :-)
