Looking Up: Coral Landscape

Lillian, I love the shapes and colors, although I have no idea what exactly I'm seeing!

Cool shot!

Lil,
This is very sweet. The foreground and the boat on the surface plus the sunlight makes it a winner. Underwater photography is not too expensive, it is the trips to get there. Working on some shore locations.

I like it, but it locks over-saturated for my taste.

Really cool! Doesn't look over saturated to me... this is how I remeber coral and sea look like from the below when you dive in the tropics.

Great colors here, almost like being there in person.

The saturation looks fine on my monitor. Cool image.

I have no idea what I'm looking at either but the color is great.

- Dan

It's some form of hard coral...whip coral I think...and looks like a dive boat in the background...

Lilian, welcome to the wonderful world of underwater photography....where nothing comes cheap!

Stu

Lillian, nice shot. Isn't Little Cayman great? The primary subject is a red rope sponge. It straddles a different species of red sponge. The subject in the lower left is an azure vase sponge. A small yellow tube sponge is in the background. Sponge capitol of the Caribbean!

Mark

Thanks, Mark! I still have to look them up individually. The only one I can reliably ID is the strawberry sponge in the midground. They are actually black to the naked eye at depth, until you shine a white light on them. There are other black coral that aren't red, so the technique is to swim up to one and hit it with your flask to see if it's a good FG subject.

Looking back, I wish I had taken this shot with the flash on the right as well. It may or may not have worked out. UW will teach you to be conservative with film, but you also need to bracket, at least in the early stages where I am. It's not like you can just change film when you run out, but a good subject warrants a few extra takes.

People who actually know what they're doing use two strobes.

The contrast between the red coral and the blue water is great.

Welcome to the world of endless debt Lillian! - and you thought just getting into digital was expensive!

I think this is a great first try at w/a. Most importantly - you didn't overexpose the foreground and have great balance with the ambient lit background. I think you also took good advantage of the sunbeams.

Compositionally, I think it would be better if the taller rope sponge didn't intersect with the boat. I think you already guessed that a second strobe would have eliminated the shadow across the vase sponge - and given more color to the right side of the foreground.

I still would have been overjoyed to have this in some of my first w/a shots. It is easy to sit here an nit when I am not hovering weightless and an unlimited air supply.