schools of fish #5
School of sawtooth barracudas and the diver, Tiputa pass, Rangiroa atoll, French Polynesia
Olympus 3040 in native housing, natural light
this image is 10% cropped from top, right and left, heavy contrast correction and toning in Photoshop
Location on Google Maps
Wikipedia reference
"Schools of fish week" now clearly steered into retro-direction with this very old image I took in French Polynesia using compact camera Olympus 3040 with whopping 3 megapixels resolution in May of 2006. One of the goals of the new format "week of ..." is to explore my photo archive, to find new dimensions and patterns within collection, rethink some of old image presentations and to apply new advanced software to less than perfect data captured in difficult conditions. And I think that last three images ( one and two) somehow formed perfect series - three different locations but similar tonality and similar theme of the diver and big groups of fish. I used to have collection of images like this which I called "Nitrogen trip". I really like to think about these experiences as form of meditation when human being is not just getting close to nature but literally surrounded by it, merged within.
Another reason for publishing this image is that recently I made this edit for "Sports diver", premier US diving magazine - it is featured in September issue. It's interesting that sometimes it's possible to publish images taken with 3mpix cameras in such high-quality media ! :-)
On that particular dive I've seen biggest school of fish in my life. Current in Tiputa Pass was very strong, and it took us through 2 minutes flight through endless cloud of predatory fish each of each was at least half-meter long. I will never forget this experience - and I hope to come back to Rangiroa, one of the world's biggest atolls, very soon - it's been overdue for too long - I need to take SLR camera where finally ! :-)
Today very nice surprise came by - I was selected as "photographer of the month" on the massive portal of diving industry Divetime.com. This web site is huge, they feature thousands of dive sites, diving gear items, dive shops and much more. Their facebook page alone has 34,000+ followers, probably making them most popular diving resource on the web. And it's run by South Africans - considering my affection by this beautiful country whole experience is very very pleasant and cool :-). For whole month my gallery will stay on the top page - and I want to say big thank you to the people behind this resource for this honor !
This post concludes "schools of fish week". Next theme is "lagoon dreams" - no underwater photos, just gorgeous top-side images of beautiful places - and I will make effort for my virtual "weeks" not to last for months ! :-)