dancingfish news

A pacific spiny lumpsucker, from last weekend in our cold Puget Sound waters.

We are on the tail end of our trip to Triton Bay, Raja Ampat and Bali, and are currently relaxing in Ubud at the Alam Indah. It’s been a good trip, if not as productive as last year. Here are a few random shots from the trip.

And because I don’t want all my postings to be about photo contest wins, I’m going to post one of my favorite images from my November trip to Raja Ampat. Wire coral gobies can make interesting subjects because they come in all different colors and sizes and are on all different colors and sizes of wire coral. They are also quite a challenge to shoot sometimes, depending on conditions. This wire coral goby was on a very lush wire coral, and looked almost as though he was hiding in a bed of flowers.

I’m very happy to have been named a winner in this year’s Nature’s Best Ocean Views photo contest. My photo of a very small pygmy seahorse will be included in the summer issue of the Nature’s Best magazine.

This is the photo:

I think the July issue of the magazine is about to come out, which should include my 2nd place finish photo in the wide angle category of their photo contest for this year. Here is the photo:

They do have some web based slideshows up on their website under UW Imaging, but names are not mentioned, and it includes many other finalists and HMs, I think, based on the size of the shows. I had another photo show up in the slideshow for the Marine Life category, and another in the Macro category slideshow, and I don’t know if they are finalists, or what.

Results of the international photo competition were announced at Our World Underwater in Chicago this weekend. I received an Honorable Mention in the Macro Unrestricted category for my photo of a halfbeak and reflection, from Raja Ampat:

Competition announcement and results are here.

This is a highly competitive contest, so I’m very happy to receive an honorable mention.

Have been meaning to post about this, but a few weeks ago, I entered a slideshow in the Bilikiki Photo Contest, and they announced last month that I was the winner! The prize was a 7 day trip aboard the Bilikiki. Unfortunately, it needs to be taken within 12 months, and we already have Indonesia planned for fall, so it’s doubtful that I can take advantage of the prize. But it was a privilege to win the contest.

The slideshow is posted on youtube here. This is the HD version, which requires a high bandwidth network connection to view. I’ve embedded the video below if you want to watch it from this page. The low-res version is also available here. The newletter mentioning the win is here.

The second gallery I’m posting today is from my trip to Raja Ampat in Indonesia:

Raja Ampat Gallery

As always, there are multimedia slideshows for PC (exe, best quality) or mac/linux (Flash).

Here are a few photos from the trip:

I have been a laggard and not yet posted about my recent galleries that I added from my November trips. The first one is my Galapagos gallery:

Galapagos Gallery

There are multimedia slideshows listed there for either PC (best quality), or Flash that can be viewed on Macs or linux machines.

Here are a few photos from the trip that were not posted in my trip post previously:

I’ve been snowbound for almost two weeks now. There is still 20 inches of snow on the ground outside (and on) my house. I’ve not been able to drive to work since the 12th and having been telecomuting. It’s been icy and we’ve been getting freezing rain anytime it’s been warm enough to melt the snow, so there’s been no relief. And with all the work I’ve been trying to get done, I have hardly had time to go out and take some photos. But I took a couple today.

We don’t get white christmases that often, but we certainly are this year! Merry Christmas, everybody!!

Right after we returned from the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador, we turned right around and went to Raja Ampat in Indonesia (West Papua) for some warm water diving and time in the tropics. This was a terrific trip for underwater photography, organized and run by Deb Fugitt of City Seahorse. Here are a few photos from the trip:

And, my photo of a tiger shrimp has gotten an honorable mention in the very competitive LAUPS competition. Here is the photo:

And the complete list and gallery for the winners is here.

Looks like my photo of a spinecheek anemonefish has won third place in the Advanced Macro category of the SEA 2008 photo competition. Here’s the photo:

And the complete list and gallery of winners is here.

I’m back from the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador. This is a fascinating area, and I had a wonderful trip. Here are a few images from the trip.

Another Lembeh favorite for today, and this time it’s a common subject, a clown anemonefish. Common, but always lovely, I enjoy shooting these guys.

Gotta love Nemo!!

After only just recently posting my Keystone images (what few there were) from last September’s trip to Whidbey Island, we went up this last weekend to dive again. I did two dives, but have no photos from the first dive due to a camera configuration error on my part. I was also trying out a modification for my AF-ON button, which I use for autofocus, but which was very hard for me to reach, especially with dry gloves on, on my new Seatool housing. The modification was a button extender, which seemed to work pretty well, and I enjoyed being able to focus and shoot again (simple pleasures!). Anyway, here are a few photos:

The gallery is here.

Okay, back to posting some favorites from my last Lembeh trip! This is a zebra crab, who makes his home within the poisonous spines of a fire urchin. Fire urchins are beautiful creatures, if not that easy to get along with, and they make a sparkling negative space for this strikingly striped little crab.

14 hardy Wetpixelians gathered for diving in Puget Sound from a Bandito Charters boat on August 17th. Other than Rick and his crew, I knew not a soul on board except remotely through emails and Wetpixel postings. I had great fun, with Carol and Johanna as my dive buddies, and took a few photos along the way. There are some topside photos and underwater contributions from the other participants on this Wetpixel thread.

The sites we went to were Point Defiance – North Wall, and Maury Island Barges. The viz was thick and fairly terrible, but the company was fun. Here are a few of the photos.

I created a virtual gallery of the two dives on the website. The gallery is here.

I was able to take in my new Seatool housing and D300 camera yesterday for a dive off one of the Bandito Charters boats. On the first dive, we went to Dalco Wall, the current was ripping, and since it had been a few months since I’d been drysuit diving, I decided to leave the new camera on the boat. Of course, Leslie then found a spiny lumpsucker, which I’d never seen before and would kill to get a photograph of. He was very cute! But the second dive, at Sunrise Beach, was nice as well. Here are a few photos…

There are a few more photos in the new Sunrise Beach gallery at:

sunrise gallery

I’ve been a little busy, getting this order together, then receiving and assembling it, and testing it. It’s my new digital rig, with Nikon D300 in a Seatool housing. This is the setup for 60mm macro, using optical cable connections to Inon Z240 strobes. Very nice little outfit! Hope to get it wet soon.

P.S. Yes, I plan to continue to use my beloved Subeye film setup! I’ve been shooting film and digital side by side for five years now.