Although this is a fairly old image, I've been prompted recently to consider that people enjoy seeing the "fun" stuff that I've taken. Never have I had closer interactions with marine life than I did on 2 consecutive weekends in late 2011 when we visited first Lundy Island and then the Farne Islands... Pretty much opposite ends of the country but very similar sorts of encounters.
Whilst in Lundy, the seals seemed to stay around and "play" with us for longer, there were far more seals up in the Farne Islands:- At one point, whilst moored up for lunch we were surrounded by scores of tiny dark faces, all watching us from the water.
The skipper seemed keen to take us to a dive site where we could get some depth. It took some effort to persuade him that we were in exactly the right spot already with all the seals around us! I dont think we ventured deeper than about 3 metres that dive but I'm really glad we didnt. It was quite overcast and going deeper wouldve meant heavier use of artificial strobe lights and likely the inability to incorporate the surface into our photos which can really enhance a shot sometimes.
The seal here is simply one of those I've not published before although the gallery on the site has been in place for over a year now. It was only whilst i was browsing through, looking for "fun" shots that this one stood out.
I was tucked into a small gulley, along which I'd seen several seals pass. I thought if I hung about long enough, I might get a swim-past. I was treated not only to a seal who stopped for a moment but to a full-on fin tugging, playful seal who ducked in and out of the kelp, eyed me up and nipped at my fins:- altogether very reminiscent of an energetic puppy wanting to play.
Camera settings here were 1/250th sec, f/4.5 and ISO 200. I used a tokina fish-eye lens set to 11mm focal length. My 2 strobes were set to low power since I anticipated a reasonable amount of particulate in the water which I didnt want to light up.
If you feel so inclined, you can like the photo here which will put a note onto your facebook timeline. You should be able to share it from there but please make sure you mention my website.

A discussion on facebook about snoots has prompted me to write this blog entry regarding the fibre-snoot that I made for myself.
For those not aware what a snoot is, it's a contraption which shapes the light used when taking a photo. To explain further, I've created a gallery which shows how I made the snoot and some of the end results. But I digress.... The purpose of this post is to explain how I created my DIY fibre-snoot for my underwater photography work!
It took some time to start the whole process off. I knew I had to have a bendable tube and some fibre-optic cable of course and a base of some sort but the base was the tricky bit as I didnt want to end up bolting tubes to flat discs - that would be too time consuming and bulky
Eventually, I had a brainwave and realised that a CD spindle (the kind you get if you buy a stack of blank CDs or DVDs) was exactly the right size and shape and it had a ready made hole through which I could poke some fibre-optic cable. It took a few goes to get this (major) component to be the right shape... some of them cracked when I cut into them and on some I got the positioning a little off:- The hole where the cable goes really has to be directly over one of the flash tubes to get the most amount of light.
I tried a few brands of flexible pipe initially but they all tended to be relatively transparent, apart from Loc-Line so that's what I now use.
Fibre-optic cable isn't that hard to find on ebay. The issue is really that there's too much to choose from! I bought a selection so I could experiment... The largest unsheathed cable was 3mm diameter but I soon decided that smaller strands (2mm) would be better as I could fit more of them through the centre of the flexi-tube. I used this configuration for a long time, with electrical tape being used to hold all the strands of cable together before I found a better solution:- some 6mm sheathed fibreoptic cable - I strip the sheathing off first and the bare cable then slides straight in! This produces a much stronger light, plus there's no need for sticky electrical tape!
I've used a short length of old garden hose to attach the Loc-Line to the base. Put the hose in boiling water to soften it first, otherwise it's very difficult to slide it over the Loc-Line.
Finally, I use a short section of an old wetsuit sleeve to secure the finished snoot to the strobe. The most important thing to remember when attaching your snoot is to line up the hole on the spindle with one of the flash tubes. This should be easy enough to do by touch alone if you've shaped the base of your new snoot correctly.
If you're still interested at this point, I've taken some photos showing the steps involved in creating this fibre-snoot. You can see them in the fibresnoot gallery here, along with some example images I've taken.
If you've got the time and patience or if you're not yet convinced that snooting is for you, then I'd suggest it's worth having a go at making your own. To save you time, I can source the component parts and send them to you in exchange for £30 (plus p&p), then you can get straight on and follow the instructions here to make YOUR own snoot!

As some of you might be aware, it snowed last week here in the UK. Not big snow like Canada or Norway but enough for the country to grind to a halt. It meant I had to work from home which had the side-benefit of allowing me to get out in the snow and take a few pictures at lunchtime. I drove Pash and I up to Devil's Dyke - a high spot near home from which one can take in scenic vistas of the South Downs and the towns along the coast. The roads were treacherous (did I say it had snowed?) and there were definitely no scenic vistas and in fact we were out of the car only for about 10 minutes before the chilling wind made us retreat.
We noticed several horses in several fields, looking rather chilly despite their draughty, blanket type coats. (Do they make woolly hats for horses? They should.. I reckon that's another idea for Dragons Den!)
Anyway, the bright snow and the cold didn't cause the camera any problems... snow on the lens was the main issue. Once it's there, it's rather difficult to get rid of it without creating smears, especially with big gloves on. The only tip I've got is to point the camera so the lens is away from the source of the wind... No-one reads this blog expecting to learn secrets and ground breaking techniques do they? Does anyone read this blog at all!?
Here's a picture of some horses that were doing something. We saw 3 others that were stood standing at the edge of a field, all staring off in the same direction into the (completely white) middle distance. They looked rather unsociable to be honest so I didn't take their photos. I like this image because of the plain white background. It's much easier with snow, obviously but I also increased the exposure by a tad in order to make the snow even brighter, enhancing the whiteness of the whole scene.
I'm aware that one horse is facing away.. I did click and neigh at it a bit to try to get it's attention but I guess it was more interested in it's food. Hey! - that's horses for you!

Ambon is one of the Maluku islands of Indonesia and forms part of a chain of volcanic islands surrounding the Banda Sea - home to some fabulous marine life. A group of 16 (mostly) BSoUP members stayed with Maluku Divers in Ambon Bay. There's an awful lot of garbage in Ambon Bay. Periodically it gets washed up on shore by the tide. My girlfriend, Pash organised a beach clean-up one day and got about 30 people, including resort staff and several local villagers out onto the beach filling bags with rubbish. Seems that the government dont have an organised method of refuse collection so the next best option is to collect the rubbish and to incinerate it... There are plans afoot to build processing plants to convert the plastic into fuel but for now, burning the stuff at least stops it polluting the water and thereby the fish which are the staple diet of the Islanders!

Rather than post a picture of some rubbish being washed up on the beach, I thought I'd share an image which has already been requested as a print but which also was a memorable experience for me in the water... The dive site was nothing special above water and even below the water, there wasnt much to see, however, We came across a rope, attached to a buoy on the surface. Around this rope were about 15 squid. They were mating - the female would attach an egg to the rope whilst a male shielded her from other male attention. Once the egg was attached, the female withdrew and the male fertillised the egg before accompanying the female to a couple of metres back from the rope. Once they'd had their turn, another pair of squid would move in and go through the same procedure. It seemed like they took it in turns. Every now and again, a rogue male would attempt to move in on another's female and there'd be flashing of skin-colours and a display of tentacles from both, generally resulting in the existing male regaining his position with the female.
The squid didnt seem phased by having several divers mesmorised by their dance like movements and it has to go down as one of the most memorable dives I've done to date.
I've not uploaded an Ambon gallery yet... that will come soon and I'm sure there'll be another post here too.
I HAVE uploaded a couple of photos to my 500px account. You can find that here at www.500px.com/marinepix
PS. Feel free to vote for my images on 500px if you like them; and please do consider clicking the "like" button below this post if you'd like to hear/see more.

It's been a while since my last blog entry. I think I've been occupied with things other than photography but I went to Nuweiba in September this year. Towards the top of The Red Sea in the Gulf of Aqaba lies Nuweiba, about an hour and a half's drive north from Sharm El Sheik Airport. I'd been once before and this looked like it'd be the last chance we'd get to go and visit our friends Chris and Jenna who are running the Emperor Divers operation there at the Hilton Resort Hotel. Chris and Jenna are shutting down the operation in mid November due to a lack of business. A real shame because it's a fantastic destination for those wishing to learn and for those, like me, wanting to practice their underwater photography!
This year's trip coincided with the Macmillan Coffee Morning event which was being organised at various locations around the world. Our good friend Nici Bauckham, a manager for Macmillan in the UK suggestted an underwater event whilst we were on holiday. The picture here is one of the better ones I managed. I realised its very difficult to organise even 5 people into a position with some symmetry and where everyone is looking at the camera! Those who take photos of weddings, graduations and other events are very lucky to be able to use their voices to coordinate their subjects. Trying to do it using hand signals is not easy, especially once the strobes have fired once and everyone's attention is elsewhere. It's also very difficult to ask someone to "say cheese" when underwater. Perhaps next time I'll have a piece of cheese drawn on an underwater slate so I can hold it up at the right moment.
Craig, pictured here 2nd from right, completed the final parts of his PADI open water diver course whilst we were in Nuweiba. Just a few tiny bits of paperwork to complete and he'll be a fully fledged diver, hopefully to join us on some dives in the UK and perhaps some other dive-courses too!! Congratulations Craig!
Other images from our trip to Nuweiba can be found in the Nuweiba gallery by clicking here.

I've been listening to a "tabletop product" photography online course run by CreativeLive. This company is based in Seattle and they generously broadcast free photography courses on a regular basis via the internet.
With the time difference it means staying up way past a sensible bed-time in order to watch but I've picked up lots of information and tips along the way.
The guy conducting the online course covered many (but not all) of the subjects in a book I had recommended to me called "Light, Science and Magic". I've read this book cover to cover and I still find it interesting to dip into. Each chapter is dedicated to a different challenge in photographic lighting (glass, wood, metal, etc) and it takes you through the principles of how to get the lighting you want and avoid the lighting you dont. I've now noticed that the 4th edition of this book has been published so I'm rather keen to get that. The link above will take you to Amazon where you'll be able to see other people's reviews too so dont just take my word for it! :-) Anyhow, the image here seems to be appropriate. Although I had only just started reading the book at the time I took it, it was enough to make me consider the lighting. My intention was to create something interesting to look at. The lights needed to be tweaked numerous times before I was happy and I ended up creating my own 6-bulb studio light
and reflector during the process. This was really my first effort at manipulating lighting so I'm not claiming it's perfect at all but it's a start. I used a thin sheet of white plastic - the reverse side of an old advertising poster which work had thrown out to create the shiny, continuous background.
I proved to myself that I'm capable of lighting things properly but it also proved to me that I need some better lighting equipment! I think I'll be purchasing a soft-box in the not too distant future!

I had to wait a while before I finally found a dandelion in the garden in a state it could be photographed.
That's not to say the garden is altogether free of weeds but it was a dandelion I was specifically looking for. It was a sunny day so the light was harsh but it also meant I could vary the settings on the camera without worrying about the image being too dark.
I set up the tripod and camera and proceded to work my subject. Using a 60mm macro lens with (and also without) a teleconverter and a 25mm extension tube meant my depth of field (the area of the photo in focus) was razor thin and as a result, I got really frustrated with the miniscule amount of breeze that was blowing... I had to pause for every tiny movement of the dandelion as it phased out of focus, patiently waiting for it to settle back again before I pressed the shutter button.
I practiced using "mirror lock up" at one point to reduce any remaining vibrations but even then I found it to be rather hit and miss since there was a slight delay between composing the image, locking the mirror up and actually shooting the picture which was enough to allow the plant to be blown out of focus!
So, needless to say, in the end, I had a huge number of photos to browse through and inevitably many of them were very similar. Towards the end of my session in the garden, I blew some of the seeds from the head of the dandelion and captured this shot. It's different from all the others and I think that's why I like it.
It's possible the white smudge above the seed head could be judged as a "distraction" but I left it in because it's a single seed that got caught on the wall of the shed which I was using as a background.

A break in the poor weather and an invitation from my friend Nick to join him for a dive in Selsey was too good to miss.
The visibility in the chilly, early-morning water was around 1-2 metres so quite adequate for macro photography, especially with the snoot I was intending to use... This DIY job was in fact a 60 pence funnel with the end cut off and part of an old wetsuit sleeve to hold it to my strobe.
There was a LOT of surge (back and forth movement of the water) so I found the main issue was staying still enough to line up a shot with the subject in focus, the snooted light pointed perfectly and then get a decent composition into the bargain! I took so many shots which were slightly out of focus or which had part of the animal slightly out of frame. When you put such effort into shots, I think it's natural to regard them as your "best" images but in my experience, it makes no difference to those who are casually looking. People like colour, contrast and things which either show character or mood or imply a little "story" behind them. I think this is something I need to practice.
The image here is of a scorpionfish - it was about 8 inches long and wasnt spooked by me repeatedly looming then retreating in the frustrating surge. I've used the snoot lighting to enhance the mood a bit, as well as to isolate the subject from its background and reduce backscatter.

The conditions meant I had to put a lot of effort in but what makes this image is (I think) that by shear fluke, reflected in the eye of the fish is my dive-buddy Nick with the beam of light from his torch pointing ahead of him. Very tricky to see here so if you click on the image, you'll see the larger image.

I sacrificed a couple of hours of much needed sleep to set up my drip-stand again, this time with the intention of playing around with the lighting a little more.
I set up one of the strobes I normally use underwater (Inon Z240) to fire at the same time as the flash unit (Canon 430EZ). I pointed the flash at the backgound and triggered the strobe using the fibre-optic cable which I'd usually use to attach it to my underwater housing.
Initially, I tried to balance the strobe on top of the two articulated arms used to position the light when it's attached to my housing. Unfortunately, the strobe is heavy and the arms are light so after swearing at it a bit for being wobbly and off-balance, I decided to re-attach the whole thing to the housing in order to get a much sturdier base.
I attached a funnel type thing to the strobe which acted as a tiny circular snoot - creating a tiny circular patch of light wherever I pointed it. I then carefully positioned the housing and strobe so this snoot pointed directly where the splash would occur.
From that point on, it was fairly plain sailing! The power of the flash was a little too much relative to the power of the snooted strobe so I will aim to correct that in a future exercise. I'm also keen to try lighting the background which should ensure I get a more natural vignette (the black edges round the image) - In the image here, the left hand side of the vignette is something I added artifically to match the one already appearing on the right.
I got several new types of image but before I could start changing things further, a wire came loose on my electronic trigger kit! With my resident engineer unavailable, I packed up for the night. Once the thing is mended, I'll be back!
I've added this and another new image to my Liquid Art gallery

It's something that I've had a go at in the past (with limited success) and I've wanted to try again with some more control so I obtained a "drip kit" from a local government contact I have, I constructed myself a wooden frame and I had an electronics timer built by a brilliant engineer I know.
I started dripping water into bowls of water to get a "spike" of water rising from the bowl. To freeze the action, there were two options. Have the camera triggered by the timer unit and use a very high shutter speed or, have a seperate flash fired by the timer. I chose the latter since it had been recommended, plus, I knew that the flash duration was far quicker than any shutter speed my camera could come up with.
Following some success with the spike photos, I inverted the bowl to try creating "crowns" which are the result of much shallower water. Really, I was playing around with the timer, making sure I could get the shapes I was after. It was clear that I could but I needed to get some better lighting since my images lacked colour.
After some experimentation, I found that the water tended to take on the colour of whatever was surrounding it so I started propping up bits of coloured paper, etc. This too proved somewhat successful although it was clear I needed more practice. Finally, that evening, I started playing around with milk and food colouring. I guess milk itself would've been fine.
The image you can see here is the result of blue and red food colouring in milk, on a shallow saucer, with a "snooted" flash (where the spread of the light from the flash is limited by bits of cardboard). I've cheated a little in that I've enhanced the dark edges to the point where nothing else is visible but I'm hoping, when I get another chance to use my drip-kit, I'll be able to improve my lighting.
More splash images from this and my previous attempt (without the timer kit) can be seen here.

As I mentioned in my last blog entry, I was on the beach in Brighton taking photos of the west pier.
I thought it only fair that I share at least one of the images I took although it's not the only one I liked. (I'll add others to my Brighton gallery at some point in the near future).
I wanted the water to look smoooth and calm and although it was reasonably calm that day, my aim was to remove the texture altogether and make something a bit "unusual". I used a Lightcraft workshop, 9-stop neutral density filter which gave me the chance to keep the shutter open for a long time (30 seconds in the case of the photo here)
Since the sky is brighter than the land/sea, it's difficult to bring out any kind of detail in the cloud just using the camera. The only option being to use a graduated neutral density filter. I borrowed such a filter for a few shots earlier in the afternoon but had handed it back prior to taking this shot. As such, I've had to add the ND grad filter effect using the computer. It's not quite the same but it does help to bring out some drama in the sky.
Although the pier could be deemed to be the central point of the image, I was really hoping to generate a sense of being small, using the old pier legs to point towards the sky.
If there was one thing I could change, it would be the small piece of metal sticking out from the pier legs which I think is just a little distracting, although with the size of image here, it's maybe not too obvious.

Had a bit of time today so I thought I'd explore, to find out where might be the best (and safest) place from which to take a picture of the lovely rape-seed which has come into flower on the side of devil's dyke near Brighton.
The issue really is that the best vantage point to capture the regimented lines in the field turns out to be the middle of the dual carriageway!
Well, after a bit of driving around, and a considerable walk, I discovered an opportunity and the image here is one of about 30 I took before I chickened out and made it back to the safety of the public footpath!
Since I had a bit more time, I thought I'd explore some other shots of this field of yellow so I headed back to the car and drove up to the top of the Dyke where I was able to see the sea in the background.
Not wishing to get too much in the way of "industrial Brighton" in my nature image, I had to crouch or stand on verges to get what I wanted.
If you have a look at the gallery I've created, you'll see the sky was rather overcast so I've boosted the contrast of some images to emphasise it.
Next sunny day we get, I'll head back to the same place to see if I can get some more intense blues behind the yellow flowers.

The alarm clock went off half an hour later than planned this morning but luckily I'd prepped all my dive and camera kit the night before.
The plan was to dive in Selsey, under the lifeboat station and despite the slight chop and the early start, many others were diving too!
Last weekend, I missed the reported hoardes of nudibranchs so I was hoping for better luck this time!
It took me about half an hour to spot my first one but by that point I'd adjusted my lighting on numerous different subjects, including pipe-fish and anemones, building a good feel for light power and position.
I was using a home-made snoot on my right hand strobe... made from a funnel with an old piece of wetsuit sleeve to keep it in place. The left strobe had a diffuser in place and I used it to create a bit more light on each scene, enabling me to highlight subjects or parts of a subject with the snoot.
I came across a pair of white nudibranchs, both laying eggs on the same piece of rusting debris. This bit of metal actually helped my composition since it raised the two creatures away from the ground and allowed me to get the camera down to their level, hence allowing me to seperate them more easily from the background. I used an inward lighting technique with the main strobe to isolate them even more from the background and I started shooting.
Since I wanted to get each nudibranch and it's eggs in sharp focus, I used a high f-stop (F11) and adjusted my shutter speed accordingly to work with the light I could get from the strobes.
It's a shame the nudi's werent both facing the camera but I dont like going round moving the wildlife to suit my photos so I'll just have to revisit and keep looking!!

I headed out last evening to meet up with a friend who was planning to create time-lapse photos overlooking Brighton as evening fell and the lights came on.
I left him setting up equipment on the upper level of the Marina car-park and headed down to the beach where I'd seen some exposed rocks running along the shore.
Predicting a nice sunset due to the reasonably clear sky, I wanted to capture the scene with my ND500 filter - a neutral density, 10 stop filter which I knew I could use to smooth out the water whilst the sun was still high in the sky.
I used the exposed rocks to provide a lead-in line for the image, my intention being to guide the viewer's eye towards the details in the distance... In this case, the Palace Pier - a thriving hub of activity and entertainment and a notable Brighhton landmark.
The ND filter worked well, although it created some vignetting (darkening around the edges of the image).
My thoughts on examining this image futher... I'd like to try getting much more foreground detail.. the pebbles on the beach are also a well known feature of Brighton and the texture they'd introduce in the foreground, I feel, may increase the overall appeal

We drove into Brighton along the seafront road with the intention of getting to a point where I could get shots of either of the two piers in the sunset. Unfortunately, as is often the case in Brighton, the traffic was against me!
I made it only about as far as the West Pier before I decided to change plan and park up. Part of the reason was a large flock of seaguls gathering on the rusting metal structure. Well, I got a few shots from the prom using my 18-200mm lens but frankly I wasn't really enthusiastic with the results... A flock of birds, in the distance, with no real formation or pattern to them is not terribly appealing.
The light was pretty good though so I looked around for ways to use the light in a photo. I was looking for a landmark or feature to place in the foreground in some way. The bandstand is what I noticed and what I then spent until the sun had set working with. Luckily I had the tripod in the car so I set about it. There were lots of people desperate to get into my picture so I tried to "use" them in my shots. I think, in this case, the silhouettes work pretty well.



As the sun dipped further, I had to take all the opportunities I could to capture the sunset.
Since there were people determined to be in my picture. I figured I would remove the offenders from my final images by cleverly merging similar photographs (where the person was in different positions in each) so I took even more pictures than normal of seemingly the same scene! Wow! what a lot of photos to go through on the computer!
In the end, I liked the look of the one shown here.
The guy here looked so dishevelled and bored, he inspired me to start a new collection of photos which I'm calling "tramps at sunset".

Devil's Dyke isn't too far to travel from Brighton. When I headed that way I was aiming just to catch a breath of fresh air, ponder the view from the top and perhaps take a few snaps. On the return journey, we spotted a few horses in a field and decided to stop. Animals can make great subjects and I was pleased with some of the images I got since the light was in the right place to cast a nice orangey glow.
When I got the images home, I decided that the sky looked a little washed out behind the horse and so I started playing about with HDR (High Dynamic Range). The normal idea with HDR is to blend together several pictures of the same scene which have been taken with different exposure settings.
In doing so, a greater amount ("higher range") of light-information is available for manipulation.
The way the information is manipulated is purely personal choice and I've chosen, in this image to emphasise the texture of the horse's skin as well as recovering details of the cloudy sky which weren't visible in the original photograph.