Story Behind the Shot – The Pregnant Pygmy Seahorse

Story Behind the Shot Pygmy Seahorse

One of my more popular photos, the Pregnant Pygmy Seahorse, was taken in 2010 at Cannibal Rock in Horseshoe Bay, Komodo National Park, Indonesia. After spotting this pygmy seahorse a few days before, I made a mental note to prepare my camera for “super macro” for my next visit to the area. In all honesty, I didn’t expect this particular seahorse to still be so “pregnant” looking when I arrived 5 or 6 days later but I was more than happy to see it was still in this condition when I arrived. When shooting “super macro” I use a Nikon 105mm lens coupled with a Kenko 2X Teleconverter which creates a 210mm lens. However, as I was using a crop sensor camera this setup has macro capability of about 2.5X lifesize (with my basic math). Shooting with a teleconverter (TC) is extremely annoying as the autofocus takes a very long time and will “stutter” at the slightest movement of the button. Therefore, the best way to shoot when using this setup is to preset the lens to manual and “rack it” all the way to minimum focus distance before putting it in the housing. This way the lens is set to its optimum “super macro” setting and will be able to take photos quickly without the issue of the auto focus losing focus. On this photo I waited patiently beside the seafan and rocked gently back and forth with the lens until the pygmy was in focus before taking any photos.   A lot of time and patience was spent (I won’t mention my deco obligation) on this set of images while waiting for this notoriously shy subject to turn toward the camera.

 

Nikon D90, Aquatica housing, 105mm with 2X TC, f 14, 1/250, Sea and Sea YS 120 strobes

Frogfish Portrait

KomodoMV13-14
Back to the underwater images for a moment, I led a group of divers to Komodo on the luxurious Dive Damai Dua back in June and we had a great trip with perfect weather. I would say the favourite dive for most of the folks during the week occurred on day 2! This dive was of course the iconic Cannibal Rock located in Nusa Kode (Horseshoe Bay) at the southern end of Rinca Island. We did the dive twice (or was it 3 times?) and everyone had a great time shooting things from schooling fish to ladybug amphipods to any one of 4 different frogfish that we could find. Here is a portrait of this giant bluish-grey individual. I would like to thank the Kilgours and friends for joining me on this trip and of course the crew of the Dive Damai Dua.