February 5th, 2010 by James
We’ve just returned from a trip to St Croix to visit our friend Cor Bosman and Julie Edwards. Sarah and I took Henry to the beach A LOT – and we also got to dive together – after over 2 years!
At the Beach - Cane Bay
More to come soon (underwater photos, etc) but in the meantime, here are some topside pix:
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July 30th, 2009 by James
I’ve recently returned from leading my first expedition to the Bahamas to dive/swim w/ sharks and dolphins. This was a Wetpixel.com Expedition and I was responsible for a group of 9 divers. Everyone had a fantastic time – including me and we spent some great times in the water.
I’ve uploaded a bunch of photos to our gallery so take a look. Meanwhile here are a few of my favorites.
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July 24th, 2008 by James
This past weekend I taught an underwater photography workshop for the Houston Underwater Photographic Society here in town. It was quite an event with about 20 photographers showing up to practice their wideangle, and lighting skills. I gave a short lecture, explained the equipment we’d be using, and then turned everyone loose in a great big pool. A good friend Al took a photo of me in action:
You can view photos of the models, makeup artists, and photographers at: http://www.reefpix.org/v/underwater/pool/hups
Posted in Dives, Gallery | 1 Comment »
November 30th, 2007 by James
So the day after Christmas, I went diving again (by myself) at the Coronado Islands aboard the Lois Ann. This is my favorite boat/outfit to dive with in San Diego (local) because they have such great service, an excellently laid out boat, and really good food. Can you believe they fed us quiche for breakfast after our first dive! Captain/owner Randy also goes out of his way (burning expensive diesel) to do whale and dolphin watching between the islands and Mission Bay.
For those in the know, the Coronados are a great place to dive with juvenile California Sealions during the winter time. They hang out at an ampitheater on the inland side of North Island – called Lobster Shack after a long-gone lobster fisherman’s camp – and are literally ecstatic to see the boat pull up with their new toys. Diving with the Sealions at Lobster Shack is more like playing at Romper Room in a snow-storm. It’s not that great for photography. But luckily the Sealions are happy to follow the boat around and dive with you at other sites – like the Keyhole. This spot is on the Southern tip of North Island and has great terrain, lots of flowing eel grass, and some nice bull kelp too. This is where I think I got my best shots:
Some photographic notes: For these shots, I was using the Canon 24mm L lens and dual Ikelite DS200 strobes. I think that 24mm is almost the ideal lens for these guys, as they aren’t that big (4-5 feet long) They guys can swim so fast and move their necks even faster, and I found that stopping motion isn’t possible, even with shutterspeeds of 1/125th of a second. So I got a LOT of motion blur in my photos. Motion blur can be a GREAT thing, and can really be used to showcase the speed or energy of a subject in a photo, however I wasn’t able to get the motion blur I wanted. I attribute this to the fact that my Canon camera will not do 1st (or rear) curtain sync with underwater non-eTTL2 strobes 
This to me is a major fault of Canon cameras, because other brands have no problem doing rear-curtain sync with just about any flash. So your options are to pan with the Sealion – which is do-able but really hard – and which results in a sharp subject but a blurred background. If you want a sharp background and a sharp subject with a blur trail behind it, you need to use an eTTL2 converter so that you can get the camera to fire the flash at the END of the exposure. This is what I’m going to try next time…
Posted in Dives, Travel | 1 Comment »
November 30th, 2007 by Sarah
When I was about 9 years old I visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium and was mesmerized by the 3 story kelp forest aquarium/exhibit. I decided that some day I would dive in a kelp forest. Well, after two somewhat unpleasant wetsuit diving experiences diving at the Coronado Islands over the past 4 or 5 years with James I told him that I would never dive in California again (or any cold water for that matter) unless I had a dry suit. As you can see in a recent post by James, I now have my very own, 1980s hot pink and green drysuit.
So, here are the photos of me, achieving one of my life’s goals, over Thanksgiving. I was very happy during this kelp dive, which was in about 50 feet of water at Point Loma, just outside Mission Bay in San Diego. I have to admit that I was suitably impressed by the grandeur of the kelp forest ecosystem. James even noted that I was doing a little victory dance while on the dive to express my excitement and approval. But I must let you in on a little secret. Even though these two dry suit dives, the first of my life, kept me significantly warmer that I had ever dreamed possible, and were much more pleasant than any wetsuit experience could possibly be, in the back of my mind, I was really doing a victory dance that said, “I’ve achieved what I set out to do, I’ve dove in kelp. I never have to dive in such cold and miserable water ever again. Hooray!”
Thankfully, James photographed this landmark event in all of its glory. I wasn’t comfortable enough with the use of my drysuit to take my camera on the dives, so we don’t have any photos of him.
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November 27th, 2007 by James
If we went diving together last week in San Diego and you’re looking for a photo of yourself underwater, I’ve uploaded the photos to Smugmug where you can view them and purchase prints. Thanks everyone for some great diving!
Posted in Dives, Travel | 1 Comment »
May 17th, 2007 by James
Due to hard work and perseverance by my good friend Nico my blog and gallery has been moved from its old home (failing hardware) to a new space. Thanks again Nico! Along w/ the move, there are new versions of everything. I’ve been out of town so haven’t gotten a chance to update my theme or link in older photos, but hang around as it will get there. In the meantime, check out the upgrade to Gallery 2 – just click on the photo below!
Cheers
James
Posted in Dives, Gallery, General, Reefpix | No Comments »
September 18th, 2006 by James
Two weeks ago, I led a digital underwater photography workshop to the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary for the Houston Underwater Photo Society. The trip was a “weekender” leaving Friday eve. and returning Sunday evening, our club had ten spots on the boat. Sarah came along and lent a hand, and she also made some great photos using a rental Canon 5D camera and housing from Reef Photo and Video.
We had overcast skies and rain for most of the weekend, making wideangle photography challenging. However, I persevered (:-) (how corny) and used a 15mm fisheye lens to get close and capture as much blue as I could. The wonderful ISO400 performance of the 5D also came in handy. Sarah used the 17-40mm zoom. For macro, we used 50mm and 150mm lenses.
Here are a few of my favorite shots from the trip. Click a photo to go to the gallery:
Unfortunately, we missed the last dive of the trip because one of the passengers from out of state wasn’t feeling well. It was a shame, because the conditions at Stetson Bank were incredible, with 70+ viz, nice blue water, and very little current. It also didn’t hurt that we saw a manta and a sandbar shark on our last dive there (macro lens attached of course).
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September 16th, 2005 by James
We’ve posted some of Sarah’s favorite underwater photos from Bali. She was using a Canon 20D and Ikelite strobes and shooting the 50mm and 100mm macro lenses. With the 20D’s 1.6x crop factor, 100mm lens, and “Woody’s” diopter she was able to get some awesome high-magnification photos.
And she really got the hang of shooting the 15mm fisheye and lighting her wideangle photos:
Click here to see the full gallery: Sarah’s Underwater Bali Gallery
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September 16th, 2005 by James
I’ve posted our topsides photos from Bali and Japan.
We traveled all over the island and stayed at something like 5 different places:
In Japan we met up with our new friend and longtime Wetpixel acquaintance Chris Bangs who showed us around Narita including a fun trip to the grocery store and an ancient Shinto temple:
See the Bali Topsides Gallery and the Japan Narita Gallery
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