GREAT NEWS! My work is currently hung and exhibited in New Zealand. I am doing an exhibition with Jacqui (wife, underwater model and talented artist) in Methven, South Island. I’m especially looking forward to presenting my work to a mountain community as i’m sure it’ll be quite a change from the norm. Jacqui’s work is predominantly collage – her work can be seen at jacquishipp.com.
Take a look at what the local media had to say about the exhibition here
As the title suggests, i’ve included a few land macro images as well as some from my portfolio of underwater shots. Commiting my work to paper is always very exciting – and not without it’s challenges.
Here are the images I am exhibiting, with info. Some are also elsewhere on the site and others are hot off the press:
Swallow’s Cave fringes Kapa Island, part of the exquisitely beautiful Vava’u Island group in the Kingdom of Tonga. In the late afternoon the sun’s rays creep around the wave-lashed rocky entrance to pierce the clear blue waters like majestic daggers, creating a truly breathtaking scene. Swallows Cave gets its name from the movement of schooling bait fish that once frequented the cave, in the same way a flock of swallows move together. The model for these photographs is Jacqui Shipp.
There is nothing quite like the eerie sensation I get when I descend on a ship wreck and it silently looms into view. From a distance it looks so lonely, patiently waiting in the deep for the ravages of time to catch up with it. But as I get nearer I realize this is no sad echo of the past. This is a thriving hub of exciting marine activity. It is buzzing with the daily carnival of underwater life – and it has a future.
Lionfish are well defended, extremely adaptable and have few natural predators. Their elegant but venomous spines give them confidence that humans pose no threat, making it easier for me to approach and get the shot I want.
They are exceptional ambush predators with a technique as ingenious as it is simple. When fleeing danger, fish tend to do so against the current. So when they hunt, Lionfish will blow jets of water to encourage prey to escape directly towards them. Dinner literally swims into their mouths.
Photographing man-made objects underwater is particularly enjoyable because they seem so strikingly out of place. It is surprising how quickly the sea will colonize every surface with vibrant life, firmly taking ownership. The familiar bicycle shapes remind me that once people used these, in a functional and every day manner. Now they serve as extraordinary breeding grounds where the corals thrive and marine creatures take refuge – a very different purpose and a very different visual statement.
Anemone fish are shy, skittish subjects, and this is part of their appeal. I want to capture their character without causing stress, so my approach is critical. They will often charge at the camera, believing their reflection in the lens to be an adversary. They also perform a frantic dance from the safety of the anemone. To avoid these negative interactions I try to introduce myself to the dominant pair from a distance at first – not by poking my lens into their living room straight away. This way I feel their stress is minimized and their shy yet captivating personalities can shine through.
When the film “Finding Nemo” premiered, Anemone fish sales tripled overnight. Conservationists are concerned about the ‘Nemo effect’ as some areas are overfished to meet the demand for these popular aquarium fish. Inspired by a line in the movie, hundreds of children sadly flushed their clownfish down the toilet in the hope of setting them free.
Swallows Cave is quite shallow at 20 metres deep, but the ’freediving with fins’ world record currently stands at thirty times that – an astonishing depth of 300 metres (984 ft 3 in). It was achieved twice, by different divers on the final day of the AIDA 2016 Freediving World Championships. Both competitors at their limits, neither daring to go an inch deeper on a single lungful of air.
Anemone fish are unaffected by the stinging tentacles of the host anemone. They have a strict size-based dominance hierarchy – the female is largest, the breeding male is second largest, and the male non-breeders get progressively smaller as the hierarchy descends. The breeding male changes to female if the sole breeding female dies, with the largest non-breeder becoming the breeding male – a fascinating family set up
My challenge when photographing Grey Seals, like this one in the Farne Islands, is to capture their grace and elegance while preventing them from nibbling holes in every bit of kit I own. They are as swift as they are curious, and endlessly playful. I caught this chap staring at his reflection in my underwater lens, utterly transfixed. Interactions are on their terms, and they are a constant reminder we are ill-adapted visitors to their world.
Yellowtail Scad (atule mate) is an abundant species of small, inshore marine fish of the jack family. They are usually found schooling in shallow waters and are easy to approach as they feel safety in numbers, making them popular wide angle subjects. It can be unnerving and sometimes disorientating swimming among so many fish. But with this shot I wanted to pick out the intricate texture and patterns of their reflective scales, so I used a macro lens that would produce a tighter composition.