Iphotograph.fish

World Shootout 2017

February 17, 2018
This year is off to a sprint! Just a few weeks ago, I got a phone call inviting me to accept an award at the World Shootout award ceremony at the Boot show in Dusseldorf. Suddenly, a year that was already packed to the gills with travel was about to get even crazier. But there were complications. For starters, it was winter and I had to borrow a winter coat. And by the time I had clearance to travel, I had days to buy flights to a place that is half a world away. And finally, the awards ceremony was on the 26th and 27th, and I had to be back in Honolulu on the 29th! Fortunately, I had Sarah ready to plan for us. By the time the logistical dust settled, we had 3 days to take in Dusseldorf and visit this Boot show before busting out of the country to sprint home. 

Boot is a gargantuan show of wealth consisting of 17 different exhibition halls, each featuring a different style of boat or watersport. To give you an idea of how big, the Scuba portion was every bit as big as north America's DEMA, and it only occupied 1 and a bit halls. Next door was a lovely display of yachts. On the other side of that was another hall housing an array of superyachts, some of which were well over 100 feet long and 40 feet tall. These multi-ton behemoths are shipped by barge up the Rhine and maneuvered into place by giant machinery and cranes into the halls. My borrowed winter coat didn't pass the black tie dress code to step aboard. We were forced to stare from the outside, where our drool and bourgeoisie manners wouldn't mess up the calfskin upholstery. 

After soaking up some local alt beer and some schnitzel, it was time to make our way to the award ceremony. Abutting the stage was a big aquarium where scuba divers got clever with pool toys while decked out in the latest Aqua-Lung gear. They provided a much-needed distraction while the team set up for the show. There is no way of saying this without sounding braggy, so I'm just going to say it: I won the best 5 photos portfolio category! Now time to answer some FAQs: the portfolio was a celebration of epipelagic cephalopod diversity. The prize was a 3 week jaunt for 2 through Papua New Guinea! Along the way, Sarah I will be diving at the Tufi resort, Tawali resort, and spend 10 days aboard the MV Febrina! Woohoo!!!

Sarah was instructed to stand under the vessel to give it some scale. Next to the giant hull, she is barely visible.

Nothing but Sarah and I bumping elbows with scuba celebrities Simon Lorenz and Amanda Cotton!

The biggest check I've ever held!

Finally, the winning entries. Clockwise from top left: Leachia pacifica, Ancistrocheirus lesseurii, Thysanoteuthis rhombus, Sepioteuthis lessoniana, and Callistoctopus sp. I spoke with the lead judge Roni Sofer after the ceremony. Apparently, I was almost disqualified because they had a hard time believing that I found all of these cephalopods on scuba. I took that as a compliment. 
 

Indonesia Trip Report Part I: Lembeh

March 10, 2017


In the last 13 hours, I have haggled over 65,000 rupiah (what amounts to about $7US) for a west Papuan penis gourd, dipped my toes in the Indian Ocean, and because the Indian Ocean might be polluted, I had my toes cleaned by fish in what was probably the weirdest tourism ritual I have ever played along with.  And as I sit here and wait for my airport transfer out of Bali, I can’t help but reflect that none of this has anything to do with why I am here.


Coconut Octopus (Amphi...


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Go Team America! 2016 World Shootout Nationals Gold!

January 28, 2017
This is already shaping up to be an amazing year.  I am headed to Raja Ampat and Lembeh (Indonesia) next month, Papua New Guinea in November, and this morning I just found out that my Team America just won Gold in the World Shootout.  It is considered the Grand Prix of Underwater Photography.  Teams consisting of three photographers from all over the world compete with six images (two per entrant).  The teams were narrowed down to the top five last month, and just this morning, the ceremony a...
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Florida 2015 recap

May 21, 2015
I have always enjoyed the Australian aboriginal concept of a "walk-about" defined in Merriam Webster as "a short period of wandering bush life engaged in by an Australian aborigine as an occasional interruption of regular work."  A few weeks ago I planned a last-minute trip to meet my dad at his Florida vacation rental at Anna Maria Island.  My flight arrived in Miami, 4 hours away and 5 days ahead of him, which gave me 5 days to wander about Florida at my own pace as an interruption to my re...
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A Day With False Killer Whales

March 14, 2015

False killer whale coming in for a closer look at the boat.

Two weeks ago I woke up at 6 am to a dilemma.  On the one hand I was meeting my friend in an hour to try to find some hammerhead sharks from my boat.  Option “B” was a cryptic text message saying, “Jeff, call me if you are up.” Satellite tags deployed by Cascadia Research Collective on the back of a pod of endangered false killer whales (Pseudorca crassidens) showed that they were 14 miles south of the harbor and making their...

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I Was A Scientist Featured On Shark Week and I Was Not Lied To

August 25, 2014

I was approached in March to help out with an episode for this year’s Shark Week on Discovery Channel.  From the get go, I knew what the premise of the show was about.  I figured it would be hyped and sensationalized.  I assumed I would be misquoted because that’s just what the media does.  And when we went out three nights in a row and didn’t see anything, I knew they would CG some sharks in place because a Shark Week show without sharks would be rather dull.  And bec...


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Feeling Small

December 30, 2012


 
For the most part, the ocean is a vast pit full of a fat lot of nothing.  How much nothing?  If you set sail from California on a straight path at a cruising speed of 12 mph, you might not hit land or see anything of interest for 22 days.  Underwater is a lot of the same.  When working on an open ocean aquaculture project where we dived in the middle of the ocean twice per day for months on end, most of the dives were in deep, unbroken, gin-clear blue water.  I spent hours looking at nothing...

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A Watery Union

December 14, 2012

 On Wednesday, I was honored to help wed two of my good friends, Amanda Tucker and Alan Brockman.  Their one request was that the ceremony be held 80 feet underwater.  As the bride made her way down the mooring, the guests, headed up by Reverend Gabe Scotti, arranged themselves on the deck above the wheelhouse of the Sea Tiger.  The dappled light of the afternoon sun and turbid visibility created a unique atmosphere that contrasted sharply with the bride's white dress and red bouquet.


 
I had n...
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Day of Sharks

November 27, 2012


There is a saying that goes “Never meet your heroes.”  The idea is that your heroes only seem invincible because you don’t know their dirty secrets and character flaws.  So when I noticed that National Geographic’s premiere shark photographer Daniel Botelho was in town, I reluctantly suggested we should go find some sharks.  His photos depicting oceanic whitetips and white sharks are of incomparable caliber, but it was his shots from Tiger Beach that really impressed on me.  After spe...

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Tiger-Quest 2012

September 19, 2012


My friends and I are a little light of pocket to go to Tiger Beach, Bahamas, so, needing an adventure, we sought to find our own local animal, a tiger shark known as "Laverne" who is known to make a living in the waters of Honokohau Harbor.  We headed for Kona to dive like crazy and hurry back before anyone noticed we were missing.  What we found was not one animal, but at least four all crowding the area looking for scraps from fishing boats.  They ranged in size from about 10 feet up to may...
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