Final Day of the Underwater Tribe/NAD Lembeh Photo Workshop

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Day 5

We are now on the last day of the workshop and there is a bit of sadness in the air as several people are leaving tomorrow but the fact we still have a day of diving left means lots more photos! Highlights of todays dives are flambouyant cuttlefish, giant frogfish, a coconut octopus with a collection of shells, and pygmies galore. After lunch Matt presented a talk about developing photos in Lightroom, which followed on with his talk about the importing process from day 2. After the third dive of the day everyone gathered their best shots from the week and handed them in for the final slideshow. After a great dinner with a BBQ chicken and shrimp satay feast, we had another milestone dive cake, 500 dives for Dmitry!

After dinner all 12 students gathered upstairs along with the rest of the people at the resort to watch a great slideshow of images from everyone who participated. We had over 150 images submitted and the slideshow was very entertaining for everyone with some killer photos submitted. After a couple of concluding speeches from Matt, Mike, and Lael the beer came out along with some very interesting stories to top off the night.

We would like to thank all 12 participants of our photo workshop: Andreas, Peter, Koy, Kit, Roy, Jennifer, Dmitry, Eliana, Jovin, CC, Margaret, and Lael for joining us on this workshop. We are glad that everyone was able to learn a lot about underwater photography and we hope to see you all again soon!

Underwater Tribe/NAD Lembeh Photoworkshop Day 4

LembehLandMV13-409Day 4

Matt and Mike switched boats today in order to start diving with the other half of the group.  We all headed out to the north end of the bay and ended up having a pygmy seahorse extravaganza.  Matts group saw bargibanti, denise, and pontohi pygmies all on the same dive!  Mikes group had to make due with a very pregnant looking denise of the dark red variety.  During lunch we had a little celebration for two of the group, Lael who made her 100th dive and Peter who made it to 300, congrats to both of you!  After the cake it was time for Mike to discuss Composition techniques and present a slideshow of images discussing different ideas.  We had one heck of a rain shower just as we were jumping in for the third dive of the day which made things a little dark, but that’s ok, perfect opportunity to shoot macro black backgrounds!  Dinner was followed by a slideshow from Matt who presented some of his all time favourite images to the crowd, and it was one heck of a slideshow of beautiful images from all over the world.  Tomorrow will mark the last day of diving for the workshop but several lucky folks will continue on for a few more days of diving.  We are looking forward to a slideshow of images from everyone tomorrow night to showcase the variety of critters that everyone has captured on camera.

Underwater Tribe/NAD Lembeh Photo Workshop 2013 Day Two

SimonBuxtonID-130416-00025-2Day 3

 

Up early today to one heck of a full day of diving!  The plan is to dive, dive, and dive some more:  three day dives and one night dive.  Matt and his group of intrepid souls head out to Makawidey Pier and Pantai Perigi for the morning with seahorses, flambouyant cuttlefish, coconut octopus, and a Randalls frogfish as the highlights of two 75 minute dives.  Mike and the “Mimic” gang head to Makawidey 2 with the usual show of seahorses, mantis shrimp, and not one but two giant frogfish as well as Tanjung Kubur with more seahorses and cuttlefish to be found.  The afternoon started with a great lunch of Beef Rendang followed by a lesson about Adobe Lightroom cataloguing and importing by Matt.  The afternoon dives had coconut octopus and the colour purple:  a purple seahorse as well as a purple Ambon scorpionfish, very cool.  After a brief snack of pisang goreng at the resort we all headed back out on a night dive where we saw several frogfish, octopus, flambouyant frogfish, and of course a cute little bobtail squid.  Once again we had a great dinner around the famous NAD Lembeh longtable with the meal consisting of a local favourite of Soto Ayam (chicken noodle soup) and fresh fish.  The meal arrangement at NAD is one of my favourite features of the resort, they set up all of their smaller tables into one long table so that everyone who is staying at the resort has the chance to sit and chat to everyone else.  It truly is a very sociable affair as the guests are constantly sitting beside a different person at each meal and meeting new friends from all over the world.  After the meal Mike launched into an interesting 40 minute discussion/slideshow about “Playing with Light” where he discussed unorthodox lighting and how to make both macro and wide angle photos stand out from the crowd by simply thinking more about the use of light.  Not long after this lecture the tired troops hit the sack after almost five hours of underwater time for the day!  Until tomorrow…

Underwater Tribe/NAD Lembeh Photo Workshop 2013

Day 1

We were very happy to welcome 12 eager photo students last night to NAD Lembeh Resort!  After a brief introduction of the instructors, Mike Veitch and Matt Oldfield, along with NAD’s owners Simon and Zee Buxton, we had everyone introduce themselves and tell us a little about themselves.  In a sign of a truly international event we are hosting students from Singapore, Malaysia, England, Thailand, the USA, Mauritius, Russia, and Brazil! Wow, what a group.

LembehLandMV13-410Day 2

Up bright and early today for two morning dives.  We have split the folks into two groups of six and each instructor is following along with each boat in order to give personal tips to each student.  The way the Underwater Tribe organizes photo instruction in events like this is to accompany each diver for a full dive giving one on one photo tips throughout the dive.  Once the instructors have finished diving with each of the six members of the group we will switch boats and then accompany the other six so each diver will have the chance to dive with each instructor.

We dove 4 different sites in the morning and the list of critters was long!  Frogfish, ribbon eels, nudis, squid, octopus, spiny devil fish, flambouyant cuttlefish and the list goes on!  After a great lunch, Mike gave a talk about photography in Lembeh and the best methods of capturing the critters.  The afternoon saw the groups heading out on a third dive before a beautiful sunset at the resort.  Following a few sunset drinks Mike gave the “big” lecture on how to control f-stops, shutter speeds, and strobes, only 3 people fell asleep!  After a big dinner Matt Oldfield inspired the group with a slideshow of images from Sulawesi showcasing the beautiful macro and wide angle opportunities that can be found in the area.

 

Off to Lembeh!

Photographer and CuttlefishIt’s been a busy few weeks in Bali between teaching a few photography courses to some great students and a quick 5 day whirlwind tour around the island with Aquamarine and Simon and Sofie Pridmore.  After 12 hours at home, I am now in the Makassar airport on my way to Lembeh Strait and the NAD Lembeh Resort for our first Underwater Tribe/NAD Lembeh photography workshop.  Its been a long time since I have spent any time in Lembeh and I am really looking forward to it.  Will do some diving and photography but really looking forward to spending some time with Simon, Zee, and Matt Oldfield as well as a great group of photography students who will be joining us next week.  Matt and I will be posting photos and updates on our blogs and Facebook if you would like to follow along.

Photographically I am going to concentrate on the wider side of Lembeh, so stay tuned!