Description
LOCATION: Misool, West Papua, Indonesia
STORY: A massive school of millions (okay, probably 20,000 or so…) of cardinalfish are using a thriving patch of black coral for shelter. But you’re thinking to yourself, “that coral isn’t black – it’s red/orange!”, and you’d be absolutely correct! Did you know that black coral isn’t actually black? Instead, it can be many different colors, including red, green, white, or even yellow! It gets its name from the fact that when poachers unethically and illegally (in most countries) kill it, it’s dried-out dead skeleton is black, and is often sold polished to a shine as jewelry. Since much of the world’s black coral poaching is done using breath-hold freediving, rather than scuba, the little black coral that remains on Earth today is now typically found at deeper depths, (below 100′) where few can effectively freedive. And the depth of this amazing forest of black coral caused me to have limited time to create the shot. Balancing my lighting against the highly-reflective cardinalfish, and the light absorbing coral was the biggest challenge. Using several extra flashes gave me the ability to manually light the entire scene effectively, but also causes my camera rig to get quite unwieldy! And then the biggest challenge, was waiting for the fish to form a pleasing shape & composition. Like an ever-flowing river of fish, they’d slowly meander between the coral’s feathery branches at a snail’s pace, but if I exhaled too close, my bubbles would send them into a panicked frenzy, ruining all my hard work of patiently blending in. So I’d exhale far away, the move in for a while, hoping for the composition, then be forced to swim away for 10 seconds before exhaling at a distance, then repeat the process over and over and over again. But the extreme depth caused me to have very little time to complete my vision before returning to the shallows for off-gassing; luckily, I was able to return to the same spot on multiple days and try, try again!
Two images that have a similar look & feel with big schools of small fish on a coral reef Birthday Cake and Gold Rush.