This is a PDF copy (380kB) of an interview in the most recent issue of Amateur Photographer magazine in the UK, written by Jade Lord.
She did a particularly good job of distilling some sense out of my rambling and making me seem (somewhat) respectable.
Check out more content in the magazine.
Here is the presentation that I gave recently at TDEX on 10 and 11 July at the Queen Sirikit Convention Center in Bangkok (See…this is proof that I did more than just overeat while I was in Thailand!).
The 26.5-minute talk is entitled “The End of Photography”, and it’s a summary of my views on the implications of the switch to digital technology for photographers and other content creators.
To be clear…I’m not referring to pixel-counting, the pros/ cons of CF cards vs. SD cards, which computer to use, which processing software to use, or any other technical issue.
The primary point I’m trying to convey is that the switch from analogue to digital has far-reaching implications for all photographers, most of which we’ve collectively only begun to explore and appreciate.
I believe that the issues I set out are fundamentally reshaping the way we can (and should) conceive, plan and execute creative endeavours.
There’s one thing you’ll have to bear with if you watch/ listen to the presentation.
The plan was to have a video camera record the talk, so I could splice in some video footage to liven up the presentation video and also to highlight the occasions when I was pointing things out on my presentation slides.
As it turned out, the video camera wasn’t actually on when I gave the talk, so there are some “slow” sections during the presentation, when there’s no visual action to go along with my rambling, just a static slide.
Hopefully the content of my talk will prove so compelling and spell-binding that you won’t even notice.
In case you’re interested, I put the presentation together in Keynote (part of Apple’s iWork suite), recorded the audio with a Zoom H4n hooked up to a Sennheiser EW 122-P lavalier microphone via a sound board at the venue.
After the talk, I synced the timing of the slides with the audio track by using Keynote’s built-in Record function, and then used Final Cut Studio (specifically Final Cut Pro and Soundtrack Pro) to edit the audio.
Using Soundtrack Pro made a noticeable difference in audio quality, as the presentation environment was “challenging”, i.e., open area with lots of competing ambient noise, echo, random people walking by, etc.
Eric and I gave two talks each at the Thai Travel and Dive Expo in Bangkok this weekend.
Here’s a snapshot of Eric showing a photo he took of flamboyant cuttlefish while we were in Lembeh back in March, using the Inon wide-angle macro lens:
Both of us are accustomed to public speaking, so for the most part, things went smoothly…nothing unexpected or out of the ordinary…except, of course, for a spontaneous gathering of a gaggle of giggling girls expressing undying adoration for young Mr. Cheng (no doubt related to his adroit handling of the aforementioned phallic lens):
Being the consummate professional that he is, Eric took things in stride (note the dopey expression on his face, visible even from behind), even deigning to pose for a group photo with his doey-eyed fan club after he had finished expounding on f-stops and lens angles:
Despite relishing the attention lavished upon him, young Eric did appear somewhat uncomfortable at times, particularly during the photo session…when he was careful to keep his hands in his lap, lest he inadvertently infringe upon the modesty of one of the innocent young lasses around him:
It is, however, a sad fact of life that all good things must come to an end. The captivated co-eds soon lost interest in my friend, leaving him alone, staring into the distance with a forlorn, pensive expression:
Actually, I was with Eric for the rest of the afternoon, but he seemed rudely disinterested in any attention I attempted to lavish upon him.
Go figure.
I’m in Bangkok now, for the Thailand Travel and Dive Expo, which was postponed from the originally planned dates in May this year.
Visiting Thailand is always lots of fun.
Today…while not preoccupied eating/ digesting far too much food…I walked around saying hello to friends, including my fellow photographer Nat Sumanatemeya.
Khun Nat is well-known in Thailand, and he’s a terrific guy to boot. If you visit TDEX this weekend, be sure to check out the gallery of his images and DSLR video footage on display just before you enter the exhibition hall!
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been completely occupied putting the following video together:
Downloadable copy available via my iTunes podcast. Music by Alain Thomas via Musicalley.com
I shot all of the video footage and most of the photos during a month-long stay in Papua New Guinea last year aboard the MV Golden Dawn, a trip I co-organised with Eric Cheng and Wetpixel.
Of note…I captured all the video footage with DSLR cameras, using a Canon 5D Mark II underwater and a Canon 7D topside. This is also the first time I’ve edited anything with Final Cut Pro and Motion, both part of Apple’s Final Cut Studio software collection. (So cut me some slack if you see mistakes/ areas for improvement! I think I did an excellent job of making Craig look. No simple task by any means.)
In case it’s not obvious, the waters of Papua New Guinea are absolutely amazing. I’m planning a few more trips with Craig for June 2011 and January 2012. We’re still ironing out specifics, but check back soon for details!
Note: For contrast and comparison, here’s another video I posted earlier from the same trip, with footage taken with a very different type of camera.
I put together a few photographs and video clips from my recent Night Safari trip at Kasawari Lembeh Resort:
Background music: Ocean by Zach Ashton
As you can tell from the video, it was a fantastic trip…great participants, the perfect venue, and lots of amazing marine life!
Diving through the night was an experiment of sorts…one that fortunately worked out really well. To cut to the chase, the night life in Lembeh was totally fascinating.
Some of the same animals we encountered in normal daylight hours were out and about at night as well, but for the most part, there were different critters and/ or activities.
Not a big surprise, but there were many more crustaceans and cephalopods around in the wee hours than in the day, and even critters we came across during normal hours seemed to be more active at night (like flounders, octopuses, frogfish, etc.)
We managed to see a bit of courtship and mating activity as well, though some of it (like the porcupine pufferfish mating I photographed) took place after everyone else left.
The biggest surprise for me was how easy and pleasant it was to dive on a night schedule.
I expected to be cold most of the time (I even brought along a wool cap, sweater and sweat pants which I never used), but actually, the water temperature and conditions were great through the night.
In addition, waking up mid- to late-morning and jumping into the water for a first dive at 17:30 or so proved to be a very civilised schedule. With much of the morning and afternoon free to chill out, sort through photos, charge batteries, check gear, etc., the night schedule was…well…easy.
Having so much time before the first dive also meant I never went in without charged batteries, lens cap still attached, CF card missing…or any of the other common flub-ups that happen when you’re in a rush or don’t have sufficient time to double-check gear before hitting the water.
I hesitate to speak for everyone on the trip, but I think we all felt this way, and several people asked to be kept informed if there’s another night trip, because they liked this one so much!
I am, in fact, running another night trip later this year in Ambon together with Eric Cheng and Wetpixel.
It’s basically the same idea…diving mostly at night…concentrating on the dive sites collectively referred to as the Twilight Zone. It’s been difficult to dive these prolific sites at night for many years now, but with the new Maluku Divers resort situated close by, we’ll have easy access to Ambon’s critter central.
I have no doubt that it’s going to be an awesome adventure. The underwater topography is similar to, but different from, that of Lembeh, and though there’s certainly an overlap in the resident critter life, Ambon’s marine community is unique…which means lots of new animals and behaviours to see and enjoy.
If you’re interested in checking out Ambon’s night life in November I set out additional details toward the bottom of this post. Otherwise, take a look at the trip description on Wetpixel. Click here for an online presentation about Ambon that I put together previously.
Finally…something of note… I did almost all the sorting, adjustments, editing and output for this video using Aperture 3.
I upgraded to Aperture 3 just before heading out to Lembeh (I’ve used Aperture since the first version), and one of my goals for the trip was to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of this latest update.
Through the process of cataloging thousands of image, video and audio files, and then editing them into the video clip above…I learned a lot(!) about Aperture 3…much of which I think will be useful to other photographers.
Give me a bit of time to recover, and over the next week or so, I’ll jot down some thoughts about what’s good and what’s not with Aperture 3.
Note: Apparently, the little frogfish that gets run over by the urchin on a rampage is an as-yet unidentified species.<strong>Correction: Just received updated information that the unfortunate frogfish is a Histrio histrio, aka sargassum frogfish, which is unusual, since it’s sitting on the bottom with no sargassum seaweed around. Apparently, there is an article being written now about this, based on observations from the Virgin Islands.
There are many types of anemonefish, all of which live in association with host anemones. Some of the cuter, more charismatic species are often referred to as clownfish…like the false clown anemonefish (Amphiprion ocellaris) portrayed in the movie Finding Nemo.
All anemonefish, irrespective of whether they’re deemed movie-worthy or not, lay large clutches of eggs near their host anemones. The fish care for their offspring with remarkable devotion and energy by clearing away garbage, circulating water over the eggs, and fending off potential aggressors…until the young fry hatch and swim away.
There are many excellent photographs of anemonefish taking care of their eggs, but somehow, a single image doesn’t quite convey the vigour with which these fish attend to their next generation.
During my recent trip to the Lembeh Strait, I spent some quality time with one particular group of saddleback anemonefish (Amphiprion polymnus) at a dive site called Retak Larry.
The fish were in a nice, shallow location with minimal visual clutter. I took several hundred consecutive images of them tending their eggs, and assembled the photos into a couple of time-lapse sequences.
In this first sequence above, the eggs are to the right side of the frame. The bright orange colouration of the eggs indicates that they were laid not too long before I took these images. As the eggs mature, they gradually become transparent, with the nutrients represented by the orange colour morphing into eyes, gills, other vital organs and such.
Watch the video clip, and you’ll get a better idea of how dedicated these fish are. There are two large, mature fish that take care of the eggs, as well as a number of smaller individuals swimming around the anemone.
The second sequence below shows a different angle of the same group of anemonefish, with the bright orange eggs in the foreground.
Eating (too much) is an integral part of the new year celebration in Japan.
A staple of new year fare here is mochi (お餅), which is basically mashed-up sticky rice.
In times gone by, everyone made their own mochi by steaming and pounding the rice themselves. In our modern, civilised existence, most people just buy mochi pre-prepared.
Store-bought mochi can still be delicious and filling, but it’s even better hand-made, as I learned a few days ago when I had a chance to participate in a mochi-making party (餅つき) for the first time.
Below is a short video:
Making Mochi from Tony Wu on Vimeo.
In case you’re interested, l took all the footage with a Canon EOS 7D.
…time to eat again.
This is the most recent instalment of my column in Wetpixel Quarterly, called The Photographic Eye.
The subject of this issue’s column is Vision vs. Technology.
I love all the new gadgets and functionality that the camera manufacturers are cranking out these days, and I’m usually the first in line to play with new stuff. But what I try to highlight here is that it’s still the basics…vision, creativity, interpretation…that produce great images.
To paraphrase a pithy bit of wisdom I heard from another photographer: “99% of all equipment is better than 98% of all photographers.” So my point is, concentrate on getting into the 2%, instead of obsessing over the 99%.
Besides the fact that we saw sperm whales, lots of dolphins, and giant squid parts(!), the trip to Ogasawara was a lot of fun. We had a terrific group of people, and Ogasawara is a laid-back, unspoiled bit of paradise in the middle of the Pacific that’s difficult not to fall in love with.
Below is a short video/ slideshow to give you an idea of what it’s like in Ogasawara. It’s a large file, so let it buffer before you play if you have a relatively slow internet connection.
All the images and video (including the sperm whale underwater) were shot with Canon cameras…5D, 5D Mark II, 1D Mark III.
I may be heading back to Ogasawara again next year. If you’re interested in joining, drop me a note via my contact form.
Here is a sentence that I’ve been wanting to write for a long time: “I swam down into the blue and retrieved the arm of giant squid.”
I know. For most people, doing something like this isn’t a life goal. I get it. I’m not normal.
But it doesn’t matter, because I did it, and it’s something I’ll never forget.
Here’s the condensed version of what happened:
While we were cruising along in deep water looking for signs of sperm whales, the captain’s wife shouted something from the top deck. I looked up and saw her gesturing frantically, but with the combined noise of the engine, wind and ocean swells, I could neither understand what she was saying, nor grasp the reason for her excitement.
Following the time-tested principle of “act first, think later”, I grabbed my mask, snorkel, fins and camera and jumped into the water. Visibility was excellent. I immediately saw a long, reddish object sinking into the blue…and swam down about 10 metres to take a closer look.
As I approached the squid arm, my brain finally kicked in (the “think later” part), and I realised that the only reason a rapidly sinking giant squid arm would be at the paltry depth of 10 metres is if a sperm whale (i.e., large animal with big mouth) had just dropped it…like perhaps only seconds earlier.
At that point, I looked around in a brief moment of panic (or sanity, depending upon your point of view)…thinking that perhaps the whale that had dropped such a tasty morsel might not appreciate my absconding with it. Fortunately, the previous owner was nowhere to be seen, so I avoided becoming whale food grabbed the squid arm and swam back to the surface.
We kept the arm segment on ice until the next morning, when we had sufficient space and light to measure it, then donated it to the research community.
Below is a short video of fellow underwater photographer Douglas Seifert measuring the (pungent) squid arm:
It’s been about a week since I got back from photographing sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) in Ogasawara with friends Eric Cheng, Douglas and Emily Seifert, and Julia Sumerling.
There is a lot I want to write about the trip, but as a first priority, I went through my photos and tried to do something that I don’t think anyone else has done/ is doing…ID individual sperm whales using in-water photos.
The somewhat crazy idea came to me because:
(a) My humpback whale calf ID project in Tonga is going well, with interesting revelations and help starting to come in from other people; and
(b) We were fortunate enough to see a lot of whales in the water the first few days we were in Ogasawara, and I noticed that many of the sperm whales have what appear to be unique white markings on their bodies, particularly in the lower abdominal area.
At first, I wasn’t sure if the white markings were unique to the whales in this particular area, or whether all sperm whales have these markings. I’m still not entirely certain (since there aren’t that many in-water images of sperm whales), but after checking Hal Whitehead’s book about sperm whales, a copy of which Julia brought along on the trip, I saw that a few of the images in his book showed whales in other parts of the world with similar markings.
So I decided early on in the trip to try to take as many photos of the undersides of sperm whales as possible, and catalogue our cetacean encounters once I got home.
Here is the result (the video may take a while to download, so give it time to buffer if you have a slow internet connection):
In summary, I was able to identify nine individual whales, all of which I believe to be members of a group of relatively friendly whales…the ones that had the giant squid. There were almost certainly more whales in the group.
What also seemed to emerge from the pattern of encounters is that the whale that we eventually saw with the squid in its mouth may have been the matriarch or leader of this particular group, as she showed up in a large percentage of my photos, meaning she approached us relatively often.
ID-ing sperm whales is a lot more difficult than humpbacks. Humpbacks are surface-active whales, while sperm whales dive down hundreds, even thousands of metres…and they stay down. But still, it is possible to ID them, as this short video demonstrates.
Whether these IDs will come in useful over the long-term or not…only time will tell. If I get a chance to go back, I’m hoping to continue this endeavour, with the objective of seeing if it’s possible to document a consistent population and/ or frequent visitors to the area.
The video above is small, so it’s difficult to read the text. This is a PDF document (11MB) of the slides in the presentation, and this is a bigger Quicktime video file (640×360, 79MB…Do not click this link and try to open in your browser. Right click to download the file only if you have a good internet connection.). There’s also a .mp4 file available via iTunes.
Note: Photographs taken under permit.
