underwater macro week #3
Sea whip goby on the coral fan, Raja Ampat, West Papua, Indonesia
Nikon D300 + Sigma 70mm, strobes Sea&Sea YS-250 x 2
this is embedded JPEG scaled and sharpened for screen
Location on Google maps
Wikipedia reference
Coral fans, also known as gorgonians, are literally saturated by life. This small goby, one of the residents, is difficult to notice even if it is brightly colored - just because it is just about one centimeter long ! Still I managed to take this uncropped picture - did I mention alrady how much I like my Sigma 60mm macro lens ? ;)
Recently I stumbled upon fantastic blog of Gary Stokes, professional photographer whom is living at the same district of Hong Kong as myself. I particularly was impressed by these pink dolphin shots. Pink dolphins are endemic species unique for the Southern China. For most people image of Hong Kong is associated with highly urbanised landscape and polluted bay frequented by big boats. This is true for big part of Hong Kong island and Kowloon. However not everybody know what Hong Kong has a lot of natural beauty. I live on Lantau Island, in the resort style area called Discovery Bay - here we have access to beautiful hills, forest, very nice beaches - and private cars are banned to protect air and environment. Waters which surround Lantau island are sufficiently clean and nice - and pink dolphins live literally next door from me ! I will try to work on the plan to actually hire boat and see if I can take pictures of them underwater - I did not see any so far - should be something relatively unique. I don't know when I will be able to fulfill this plan since this kind of shooting requires special permit, but I will keep trying - would be nice to do something right near home instead of going to the places far away !
And the really nice quote of the day by the person whom I respect a lot despite not liking his creations that much ;) :
"When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth."
- Steve Jobs