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From
time to time British marine life throws up a phenomenon that
captures the attention of divers, underwater photographers,
the national Press and thereby the public at large. Last year
you may recall reports of massed mating spiny spider crabs
(Maja squinado) covering an area reportedly larger
than a football ground off the Dorset coast.
During
May 1998 it was the turn of the Basking Shark (Cetorhinus
maximus). Having just acquired a protected status from
the World Conservation Union, they appeared to celebrate with
a mass gathering along the south coast of England. Colin Speedy,
a Basking Shark expert and collator of sightings for this
area, reported over 500 sightings from reliable sources.
Opportunities
such as this require an immediate response if successful pictures
of these events are to be forthcoming! Three hours after hearing
the news, I had rescheduled my work commitments and shanghaied
my dive buddy, Alan Mildren, from his current building contract.
We were on our way to Porthkerris Dive Resort on the Lizard.
Here the friendly staff had agreed - not for the first time
- to provide us with all necessary boat handling facilities,
accommodation, and food, all at very short notice.
Over
the next two days we experienced no less than forty two Basking
Shark encounters. Alan Mildren and I finned here, there and
everywhere for many hours each day as we learned the pitfalls
and Do's and Dont's of successful Basking Shark encounters
and photography. By the afternoon of the second day we were
getting quite experienced at timing our entry, slipping quietly
into the water and matching our boat handler's skills at predicting
the Basking Sharks' direction. This can be quite vital as
these huge fish plough though the water at around two knots
and can complete a full turn within their own body length
if disturbed.
The
results achieved during this exercise proved to be critical
in several ways.
Firstly,
while the fish were feeding within the richest plankton soup,
image quality was always going to be affected by loss of contrast
owing to the volume of plankton-filled water between lens
and subject. We learnt to intercept the fish just before they
entered individual plankton clouds that could be seen moving
along and perhaps formed by the tide-line created by Block
Head.
Secondly
, pictures of fish taken during cloudy conditions lost contrast
owing to darker water conditions per aperture selected and
the sharks' natural dull colouring. We took advantage of several
short cloudy spells to take rest periods or to survey other
possible locations along the coastline.
Perhaps
most critical of all was the need to achieve a position where
the sunlight entering the water was from behind the camera
as the sharks swam towards or passed you. The effect of this
natural lighting angle upon these huge fish was to vastly
improve mouth and gill raker colour and details, and to include
pleasing wave-refracted light patterns and surface reflections
on and around the sharks in the calm conditions that prevailed
during this exercise.
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