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PASSION

Tuesday, 17 February 2009

Caribbean Reef Squid at Night, Lighthouse Reef, Belize

I was living in Belize and took a trip home to California for vacation because I needed to expand my camera equipment! My first two lenses for shooting underwater stills was a 105 mm macro and a 20mm wide angle for my SLR camera. About a year later I knew I needed to expand my system so I purchased a 16 mm fish eye and a 60 mm macro lens. Upon my return to Belize I went on a night dive and used my 60mm lens for the first time. I found squid under the boat and was able to fire off four frames before they darted away. This image has become one of my all time favorites. There is no color correction, no tweaking, no enhancements of any kind. This is nature at its finest. Cephalopods are definitely one of my favorite animals to watch underwater!

COMPASSION

Tuesday, 17 February 2009

Pair of Mating Bottlenose Dolphins, Belize

Over the course of two months we had a pair of mating bottlenose dolphins come and play with us once a week on Lighthouse Reef in Belize. Six months before I lived in Belize I sold my car and bought my first underwater still camera and video camera set-up so I could teach myself underwater photography and filmmaking. Believe it or not, these dolphins helped me teach myself. I usually had one or two dives with them a week, I would shoot and then have the week to review and critique myself on what worked and what didn�t work. On my website www.anniecrawley.com under the video tab is the first video I ever put together, Mating Bottlenose Dolphins. All great cinematographers often start off as photographers. The two disciplines follow many of the same rules but they are different. When filming I always choose which I want to shoot, still or video and then focus on getting the shots I need to tell a story.

PINK ANEMONEFISH

Tuesday, 17 February 2009

Anemone Fish in Purple Magnificent Anemone, Komodo National Park, Indonesia

Clownfish are more difficult to photograph then people realize. You can take hundreds of images of these fish and still not feel like you have the perfect shot. There are times that the sea anemones ball up and show there magnificent colors and the anemone fish then bury themselves in the center of the tentacles. I played with the composition of this fish in the blanket of the anemone. After reviewing I wish I could have had a bit more purple in the scene, but the fish would not lay back down for me!

GIANT KELP

Tuesday, 17 February 2009

Giant Kelp, Channel Islands, California

Giant Kelp can grow 2-3 feet in just one day because the kelp can photosynthesize on both sides of its fronds. Using the sun as an element in an image is a tool to play around with. There is color in the foreground because I used my strobes as fill flash. When I find a scene, I will often shoot it in different ways. I played with silhouettes on this scene too, yet ultimately the fill works with the sun burst here.

BALANCE

Tuesday, 17 February 2009

Barracuda Swarm, Papua New Guinea

There are amazing schools of Barracuda swarming the reefs in Kimbe Bay. As a photographer and filmmaker I try and capture a story in just one scene, yet many times we work on photo stories and you need wide angle, close up and medium shots. So when I know I am going to have a certain kind of animal on a dive, I will often choose a different lens on a dive to get a different perspective and scene that I can tell a photo story with.

FREEDOM

Tuesday, 17 February 2009

Dive Into Your Imagination, The Blue Hole, Belize

Many times divers would get to The Blue Hole in Belize and expect to see large animals. This is not the case. The spectacular part of this dive is the fact the ocean stalactites in 100-200 feet of water used to be a cave system above water. Stalactites grow when ground water drips through the cave�s roof. It is a geological phenomenon. I dove The Blue Hole every week for nearly a year and never tired of this, I always feel so�small amongst the vast structures.

PLAY

Sunday, 15 February 2009

Sea Lions, Santa Barbara Island, California

When I dive I often look for the right moment. As I swam around looking for sea lions to play with me at a sea lion rookery, I got lucky. I photographed one juvenile swim up to a chain of salps that was drifting around (salps are pelagic tunicates), take it in her mouth and bring it over to her friend. This was a case of being in the right place at the right time and being ready with my camera to document the experience. Many people make mistakes when shooting animals because they don�t have their shutter speeds on a fast enough speed to capture the action. When I film sea lions if I want to �stop� action I know I must shoot with a 125 or 250 shutter speed.

UNIQUE

Saturday, 17 January 2009

Pair of Pink Pygmy Seahorses, Indonesia

I am lucky to be blessed with good eye sight and a solid understanding of the behavior of animals. Pygmy Sea Horses are found on a certain type of gorgonian and often there are multiple animals living together. They are very challenging to find as their camouflage techniques include not only color variations but their bodies are actually bumpy similar to a gorgonian when the polyps are retracted. The only way you could photograph these animals was with a macro lens, if a diver didn�t have a macro lens I used to encourage them to carry magnifying glasses so they could the incredible teeny tiny animal life would be open to them on any dive.

AMPHIPODS

Saturday, 17 January 2009

Amphipods on Gorgonian, Indonesia

Amphipods are crustaceans and every once in awhile there will be colonies that infest a gorgonian as part of their ocean adaptation. It was color and composition that creates the dynamics of this image. I shot this with a macro 105 lens and two strobes. I had to back up my camera and extend the strobes to capture what I wanted the viewer to see rather than focusing in on the individual animals.

ENTHUSIASM

Saturday, 17 January 2009

California Dreaming, Coral Reef Scene, Lembeh Strait, Indonesia

I dived in Lembeh Strait, the capitol of muck diving for nearly six months before I was taken to the dive site California Dreaming. I had no idea we had such incredible coral reef scenes at the mouth of the strait. The name of the site made me laugh because it was definitely not California, yet the colors were so alive on this one coral bommie that I must have put in dozens of dives on it after I discovered the intricacy of this one spot. This was about eight feet wide and four feet across and every single angle offered a photographer a different experience. It is important when you take photographs of a scene that you take verticals as well as horizontals because it gives viewers a whole different perspective. Also horizontals are very rarely made into cover shots while verticals always have the potential to make a cover!

PATIENCE

Thursday, 15 January 2009

Blood Star and Brittle Stars, Channel Islands, California

Color and composition are both important when creating an image above or below the surface. I encourage all divers to carry a light with them so they can see the true colors of the underwater realm. Simplicity can be important too. There are areas in California where brittle stars have taken over the reefs. They crawl over and encrust everything. Believe it or not I followed this orange brittle star crawling around the reef to capture this image. It was one of the first dives I ever made that I actually followed a brittle star around!