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Rush Hour At Stingray City - Alexander Mustard

I am very happy to have added my first win the Theme Portfolio Competition to the Open Portfolio that I won back in December.

The inspiration for this portfolio came from the central image on the top row, which I took three years ago. The remaining images were all taken on a single dawn dive at Stingray City, Grand Cayman, in January 2005.

The rays of Grand Cayman's Stingray City are world famous, but what is less widely known is that at dawn the rays form into a super school numbering more than 80 and circle the site in formation. This behaviour stops as soon as the first feeding boat arrives. I was first shown this behaviour in the summer on 2002 (when I took the original image) by marine biologist, artist and documentary filmmaker Dr Guy Harvey. And ever since that first trip I have been trying to get back. The problem is that unless you have loads of cash it is pretty difficult to persuade anyone to take you to Stingray City at dawn! So when I was asked to host the Digital Jam event, my main condition was that we would do a dawn dive with the stingrays! That is when these pictures were taken.

2) Squadron. This is the original image that inspired the portfolio. Nikonos V + 15mm lens. I don't remember the settings but almost certainly F8 on aperture priority auto..

3) School of rays. There are actually 30 rays in this image! No filter was used for this image but the camera was custom white balanced. Nikon D70 + 10.5mm Fisheye. F8 @ 1/250th.

4) Lone Stingray. The original image had shown me what strong compositional elements the sand ripples and the shadows of the rays are in black and white. This image was shot specifically for the left side of a portfolio trying to exploit these features in a different composition. I used the upper AF sensor on the D70 to focus on the ray close to the top of the frame. Nikon D70 + 20mm. F6.3 @ 1/160th.

5) This was the last image that I added to the portfolio. For this space I wanted a vertical colour shot that complimented the three rays above. This image was shot as a horizontal with the fisheye and then cropped into a vertical. It is the only image that has any cropping in this portfolio, as one part of my motivation was to show the rays in as much space as possible. Nikon D70 + 10.5mm. F8 @ 1/160th.

6) This final image, like the other monochromes was always visualised as a black and white. Again I was trying to create space in the image, while exploiting the ripples and horizon in the composition. Stingray City is one of the few places I shoot where I get a horizon in my underwater images and it is nice to use it to add depth to the image. This image doesn't really work this small and does need to be seen larger. Nikon D70 + 10.5. F8 @ 1/250th.