Story Behind the Shot – The Grey Reef Shark

As part of a continuing series of posts, the “Story Behind the Shot” are short discussions about photographs from my library highlighting interesting photos or events from 15 years working full time in the diving industry.

Story Behind the Shot – The Grey Reef Shark

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Now this shot might not look like the most dramatic photo of all time, and I am not posting it here as an example of such, but rather I am posting it as an example of the changing times in underwater photography.  This was taken at either Blue Corner or New Drop Off in Palau circa 2000-2002 and was shot with a Nikonos V and 20mm lens.  Those two dive sites were incredible places to dive when I worked in Palau from 99-2002 and from all accounts that I hear these days, still are great sites with loads of fish action.  There really is no feeling to compare to hovering over the edge of the drop off with 15 or 20 sharks parading past you while huge schools of fish fight for position in the current.

Looking over some older photos in the last few weeks has opened my eyes to what I shot then compared to what I can shoot now.  This was most likely shot with Fuji Provia 100 film, but I am not sure as I don’t have the slides with me, and I couldn’t say what the settings were, maybe f5.6 and 1/90?  Tough to tell when there is no metadata attached!  For digital photographers out there, could you imagine not being able to change the ISO during a photo shoot?  When loading a roll of 36 into the camera in the morning, I was stuck with that ISO film until I finished the roll, so, if all of a sudden I was down deep and the conditions changed to green and overcast, I was still stuck with that roll of film; nowadays, if the conditions get too dark I can just change my ISO on the fly, simple.  Also, although many images looked great on film, scanning them into digital never worked smoothly and took a LOT of extra time to get rid of any dust or scratches.  I don’t miss that at all!  Another thing I don’t miss?  Going down with a roll of film that had only 10 or 12 shots left on it and having an epic dive and running out of film in the first 15 minutes, that doesn’t happen in digital.

What I want now is the chance to spend another 5 years in Palau and French Polynesia reshooting everything I shot back then but with digital!

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