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.
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.
(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.
I had a video camera with me this year while I was in Tonga. Nothing too fancy. A Sony HDR-XR500, with a Light and Motion housing and Fathoms 90-degree wide-angle port that David from Scubacam kindly let me abuse use.
I’m in the process of compiling a summary document for all the calfs that we encountered and ID-ed this season…a painstaking process that entails poring over thousands of images and hours of video footage.
Actually, while going through the footage of Mei Mei, I realised that I mis-identified one of our encounters. A couple of days after this video was taken, we had another encounter with a mom and calf. At the time, I ID-ed the calf as Mei Mei.
As it turns out…that encounter was with an entirely different mother and calf…which means I have one more calf to add to my list, bringing the total (for now) to 26 calfs (plus one more that Alexis and Nathalie ID-ed after I left Tonga).
A pleasant surprise, even though it means more work, as I need to amend photo tags, excel records, GPS files…aiyah.
If all goes well (i.e., I don’t go stark-raving mad from looking at so many whale photos), I’ll post my summary in the next few days.
The 2009 humpback whale season is wrapping up for me. I’m on the way to the airport shortly.
My last day on the water was a difficult one, with blistering winds and three- to four-metre swells in some areas. But…we found calf number 25, so it was worthwhile.
We named the calf Nofo, which carries two meanings. Nofo is one of our best friends here, and Nofo’a means “good bye” in Tongan.
It’ll take me some time to write up my Week 5 summary, as I’ll be in transit for the next few days.
Meanwhile, here’s a photo of me with the film crew from RTHK. I was doing my best to act naturally…but the big fuzzy thing sneaking up on me made me a bit nervous.
The subject of this particular column is the preparation that went into taking a super close-up photo of a yawning goby in mid-water…not preparation as in setting up of equipment, but preparation in the context of acquiring the equipment, knowledge and skills to nail the shot.
There are a lot of references to Star Wars…so in advance…yes, I’m a Sci-Fi geek.
First, I didn’t arrive at the show until the second day due to a scheduling conflict, so I didn’t have much time to adjust. Second, I had to say hi to lots of friends, which is the best part of the event, but it was difficult to catch everyone after things started to get busy.
Third, I had talks to give, which required preparation (yes…of course I wasn’t prepared in advance). And finally, I was running around shooting video interviews with some of the exhibitors.
By the end of each day, all I wanted to do was crash. Had I been alone, that’s exactly what I would have done, but with Gunther Deichmann in town, I spent as much time as I could plugging him with questions about Aperture since he’s a certified instructor…which meant staying up to about 2:00 every night. Of course, having the opportunity to get personalised instruction was worth sacrificing some sleep.
Incidentally…during one of our talks, we had one of those “the-world-is-such-a-small-place” moments.
We were chatting about memorable images, and I described a stunning black-and-white portrait of a girl that I saw while I was working in the Philippines in the early 90s. It was such a striking image that I called the photographer, introduced myself, and went over to his studio to meet him. He and his wife were incredibly nice, and he gave me a signed print of the photo I liked so much.
After all these years, I couldn’t immediately recall his name, but when Gunther heard me describe the photographer in question, he immediately ID-ed him…Bien Bautista.
Bien is well-known, particularly for his black-and-white images, and by coincidence, Gunther has been friends with him for a long time!
In case you’re interested, the image that captured my attention is posted on Bien’s website. Stunning images like this stay in my head forever.
Anyway, the upshot of all this rambling is that it’s still going to take a few days of R&R to return to some semblance of normality.
Today is the final day of TDEX. I’m coming down with a sore throat, perhaps from talking too much, or perhaps from continually being in air-conditioned environments over the past few days…I guess I’m more accustomed to tropical beaches at this point in life.
I did two talks yesterday, one on basic photography stuff for beginners, and the second on lighting. Actually, the second talk was more of a demo.
With a lot of help from Aey and Mean, the show organisers, Canon, and a whole bunch of other people…I rigged up a Canon 5D Mark II to a large-screen TV and demonstrated how to take photos using natural and artificial light…just like you would underwater.
With no practice/ rehearsal, I was certainly relieved when everything worked properly!
My friend Khun Ake dropped by the show to translate for me (actually, it seemed like he was there more to make fun of me in Thai than to interpret), which was a big help and a lot of fun.
After my talks, Gunther gave a great intro into the capabilities and basic functions of Aperture. I picked up a few tips, which will no doubt streamline my workflow going forward.
If you’re around and missed yesterday, I’ll be doing two more talks this afternoon, at 14:00 and 15:30, across from the Canon booth, in the main hallway, and Gunther’s talk is at 16:15.
It’s the second day of TDEX, but just the first full day for me. I got into Bangkok yesterday and went to the show for a few hours, but left a bit early to grab dinner and crash (though actually, I ended up staying up ’til pretty late answering emails and such).
I’m about to head out with a bunch of friends to a place that specialises in awesome pad thai, something I really need, as I basically haven’t eaten since breakfast. It’s a local restaurant that I’d have no hope of finding myself…and let’s just say that the pad thai is frickin’ awesome.
Anyway, here’s a snapshot from today…Mean looking at a portfolio of Gunther’s amazing photos from his recent trip to India…on Gunther’s iPhone. Some of the images are online here. I encourage you to take a look.
Gunther is an Apple certified instructor for Aperture, and he’s here to do a couple of talks about the software. I managed to grab him for breakfast today and fire off a bunch of questions, and I’ll probably do the same tomorrow.
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