common dolphins week #4
Common dolphins playing in the blue, Wild Coast, South Africa
Nikon D300 + Nikkor 10.5mm, Pro One Dome port, strobes Sea&Sea YS-250 x 2
this image is 10% cropped from top and right, slight contrast and color correction in Adobe Lightroom
Location on Google Maps
Wikipedia reference
Here is more happy dolphin beautify for you - it's common dolphins week, right ?
It is not easy at all to observe common dolphins in the blue outside of bait ball context. Many people make mistake by starting moving around aggressively and doing a lot of splashing when dropped into pod of dolphins - also many operators drop way too many people simultaneously. Doing this you very unlikely to see anything. Best way is to slide into water very very quietly with very small group of people, and avoid any movement at all - if dolphins will be in the mood they will come and play with you, if they are not in the mood - trust me, nothing will ever help you to get closer to them - they move way too fast, and know how to avoid undesirable encounters very very well !
My friend Jean-Marie Ghislain, founder of shark Revolution foundation, great entrepreneur and photographer published cover story in National Geographic French edition dedicated to sharks extinction. Last year when I met Jean-Marie in South Africa he took nice photo of me taking pictures of oceanic blacktips on Aliwal Shoal. Much to my surprise Jean-Marie decided to make this image front image of his NG cover material - you can check it here downloading his article in PDF. I published a few shots in various National Geographic editions in past, but this is first time picture of me makes it to the pages of one of the most respected publications in the world. Thank you, JM - it's funny how unexpectedly things work sometimes ! :-)
