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.
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.
In case it’s not completely obvious, I love the fact that I get to try lots of great food in many of the places I travel to, especially in Asia.
When I was in Phuket last year, we spent two entire days eating at local food stalls and restaurants…places not on the tourist map.
This is a short video summary of 10 recommendations for places to try, which goes together with this PDF file that has details of the specific locations and dishes…in case you’re heading over to Phuket.
This video stuff is turning out to be more fun than I imagined. Doing video coverage at DEEP Indonesia actually made going to a dive show fun (everyone knows that going to dive shows is generally at the very bottom of my want-to-do list).
Actually, I have more fun messing around than I do with the serious stuff that actually makes it into the final cuts…like in these outtakes from the DEEP Indonesia 2009 video footage:
I’m on the way back from the DEEP Indonesia 2009 show in Jakarta. Completely exhausted, but had a blast.
One of the reasons I’m so tired is that I spent every day running around the show with Aey and Mean to get photos and video, which we’re editing and putting up for the rest of the week.
Below is the first video from the event. There are more over on the FiNS TV site if you’re interested, and the videos are also available via iTunes.
Here’s a second video clip from a recent trip to Phuket and the Similan Islands. This one focuses on the passengers who were with us on the M/V Dive Asia 1.
“The only way to learn is to knock yourself off balance whenever you’re comfortable.”
A man I worked with some years ago gave me that bit of advice, and it’s served me well. In fact, without realising it, I had been following this life philosophy of sorts for pretty much my entire life, initially by circumstance, later on by choice.
For example, I’ve lived in so many places in such a wide variety of circumstances that it’s a challenge to remember them all. As a result, I’ve been immersed in all sorts of cultures, which means it’s probably much easier for me to adapt to new and unusual situations than it is for people who’ve led a more stable, settled life.
Another example…I’ve worked in a many different industries, ranging from french fry cook to women’s clothing salesman, real estate agent to machine tool operator in a naval shipyard, pizza delivery (go Domino’s!) to genetics lab researcher (to this day, I detest fruit flies), investment banker to power plant developer, English-language school owner to cosmetics company owner…and most recently, underwater photographer.
It’s been a wild, crazy…and ridiculously fulfilling, ride.
As scattered as my life may seem when presented this way, there’s always that one over-riding theme. Whenever I’ve felt too comfortable, too complacent, I’ve switched and done something completely different.
Sometimes, that entailed physically moving to a different location; sometimes it meant a switch in careers; occasionally, there were minor adjustment, like taking on new projects (for instance, that led to my award-winning book Silent Symphony); and a few times, it was something as trivial as completely changing my wardrobe (though limits to my fashion sense meant this was effectively throwing out white T-shirts and buying black ones instead).
So what’s the point?
Well, the past few years have been a period of continuous change…again, some by choice, some by circumstance. But one thing I’ve consciously done is to study as much as I can about the effect that changes in technology are having on media and communication.
I have no idea what got me interested in this. I just know that I am, at this point in life, fascinated by the cataclysmic shifts in communication technology. I’m fascinated because such changes have made my life more efficient and fun, but also because I’m cognizant of the fact that we’re living in a time of creative destruction.
We are watching certain industries and ways of doing things go as extinct as the dinosaurs, while witnessing the birth of newer ones to take their place, akin to the rise of mammals and birds after the saurians had their day.
We’re watching as some people adapt, while others stick their heads in the sand. We’re watching as technology simultaneously engenders opportunity and crushes entire industries.
To bring this post back to underwater photography: As I stated in my first post this year, there’s no turning back, and everyone has to adapt to the rapidly changing circumstances.
In the spirit of change…the video below is something new for me…being in front of a camera instead of behind it.
I must admit, I’m much more comfortable looking through a viewfinder than I am being looked at through a viewfinder. But, in keeping with the “knock yourself off balance” philosophy, I’m giving this a go (of course, I’ll continue to take photos and write articles).
By no stretch of the imagination do I think I’ve delivered an Oscar-winning performance, but I know I’ll learn from my mistakes, improve over time, and hopefully, get to the point where I can be reasonably good at communicating through this medium, just as I’ve learned to do so with images and text.
Why? Because it’s new technology. It’s fun. It’s a great new way to communicate. It’s a learning experience. And it’s a challenge.
If you can’t view the streaming video, the original is here, where there’s a link to download as an .avi file or .mp4 via iTunes.
Instead of writing a trip report about my recent visit to Ambon, I played around with a web 2.0 service I’ve been watching for some time to put together a multimedia essay of sorts. The service is called Vuvox, and essentially, it allows you to combine various media forms into online shows and presentations, which you can share on the Vuvox site and also cross-post to other places on the net.
I created what’s known as a Collage in Vuvox, with a series of photographs and a bit of text, supplemented by a few video snippets and hyperlinks. The photos and text carry the story line, and the video segments help give you a feel for the particular animals and locations. The hyperlinks take you to additional information.
Vuvox is still in beta, so there are a few quirks here and there. I had a minor problem while putting this together and emailed Vuvox for help. A representative responded within minutes, which tells me they’re on the ball.
After playing around with the service, I can say that I really like Vuvox. It’s a slightly different way to tell a story, and the final product you come up with can take many forms, depending on the content, the intent and your storytelling skills (as well as how much work you want…or don’t want…to put into it).
The primary drawback I see is that whatever you create lives “in the cloud”, to use the parlance of the times, which means you can’t download it and keep it on your computer, iPod or other media player. That’s kind of a bummer, but it’s a relatively minor point, and perhaps they’ll figure a way around this at some point in the future.
To all divers and fish buffs: take particular note of the segment on the newly identified Maluku frogfish. The embedded video may be the first evidence of a frogfish using toxins or some other noxious substance to ward off a would-be predator. As far as I know, there is no other documented instance of a frogfish being toxic. (If someone out there knows of such a case, please send me a message.)
The video of the Maluku frogfish fish was taken by Chutinun Mora, who is the graphic designer of FiNS Magazine.
One cautionary note: You may need relatively high bandwidth to watch the video clips. If you experience stuttering, let the clip load, then hit play again.
If you want to see a wider view of this, go directly to the Vuvox page here. The collage effect is arguably nicer with a wide screen.
