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Chip's Images
in Belize - May 2006
By Photo Journalist
Chip Clark
('65) of Northern VA
"Here are a
few images from last week's work trip to Belize." |
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These are all surface shots done with a Canon 5D digital camera. I'm sold on
digital!... for a good example, I've included two detailed images from image
276 to illustrate what incredible detail is captured in a single digital
image file... film just can't do that! |
When I get the underwater shots back from processing (I had to shoot film..
I don't have an underwater housing for the digital camera yet.. it's on
backorder....) I'll send a few, if any of them worked...
- Chip Clark
('65) of Northern VA - 06/01/06 |
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Friday, May 12, 2006 |
Saturday, May 13, 2006 |
Saturday, May 13, 2006 |
Saturday, May 13, 2006 |
#124 is the research station
on Carrie Bow Cay.. quite a tiny island.. on an amazingly calm day after a night
of thunderstorms that temporarily quieted the onshore breezes.
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#276 Sunset
The social focus of the island: the beach table and chairs where folks
congregate after a long day's science and cleaning up dive gear and
cameras. This image is a grand example of why I'm in love with digital
cameras...
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The next two images..
#276
Clientele and
#276
Crab Trackway are both enlargements from this image.. loaded with detail and
sharp as a tack! Wow! |
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Monday, May 15, 2006 |
Tuesday, May 16, 2006 |
Friday, May 19, 2006 |
Wednesday, May 24, 2006 |
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
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#327 Me sitting in the bow of
the runabout in the lagoon of Twin Cays.. a mangrove island about a kilometer
from the research station. The silvery attaché case is my waterproof "camera
bag" on these boat outings. |
#411 is a typical sunset from
the island looking westward towards the Belizian mainland and the Maya
Mountains.
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#495 Hermit
crab.. the island is crawling with 'em. Some are in shells that have been
painted up by various folks. You can get killed tripping over one of the
big ones while you're walking around the island in the middle of a
moonless night.
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#707 The research and support
crew during the trip: Left to Right: Me, Bob Sims (Botanist), Joel (Station
Manager), Nadine (Damned Good Cook!), Jim Norris (Botanist & Principal
Investigator), Kassi Cole (Icthyologist: larval fishes, visiting from Hawaii),
Suzanne (Botanist, Professor, Lafayette Univ, Louisiana), Fred (Botanist, Rio,
Brazil). |
#731 Fred and me with some
(but not all!) of our luggage ready for departure from Dangriga, Belize to the
international airport in Belize City. Most of the luggage shown is mine. Seven
bags; four checked bags and three carry-ons.. The extra baggage charges were
almost more than my ticket price. They love me in airport security. |
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Chippy Darlin', thank you so much for these
glorious images! They are (of course) breathtaking and
absolutely incredible!
That sunset, for instance - which you call
"typical" - is beyond extraordinary!
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Here are 1.3 dozen jpeg images that I shot during my Belize trip last
month. I'm slowly getting better at shooting underwater. A lot of my
better images were shot in three feet of water or less.. you don't need a
flash at that depth to compensate for the color filtering effect of water.
-
Chip Clark
('65) of Northern VA -
07/13/06 and 07/21/06 - "hard-at-work images..":
GASP!!! WOWZERONI-RINI-ROONI!!!
Thank you so very much! |
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#95 - Jim Norris, marine botanist
swimming over the coral and gorgonians on a small “patch” reef south of the
research station on Carrie Bow Cay in Belize. Depth to the reef top here is
about 24 feet.
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#102 - A convergence of marine
botanists.. Jim Norris and Bob Sims from the Smithsonian, and Fred Gurgel
from Brazil exchanging comments by sign language while collecting
algae. Depth at the sea bottom here is about 27 feet; the “sea grass”
covering the flat sand bottom is the algae thallasia.
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#291 - Jim Norris with his
underwater digital camera shooting macro photographs of algae in it’s natural
habitat. The depth is about three feet, and we’re snorkeling. This is an area of
shallow coral formations with lots of wave action and strong water flow directly
off the ocean, so we’re constantly swimming into the current just to hold
position. These shallow pictures show the full range of colors; below about 15
feet all the warmer colors have been absorbed by the water and only the blue
gets through to your eyes, or into the camera.
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#318 - Our “large” dive boat
loaded with divers, equipment, and collecting buckets for algae. We’re anchored
in a cove at Cat Cay, an uninhabited (mostly mangrove) island about 15 miles
south of our research station at Carrie Bow Cay. |
#358 - Jim Norris snorkeling
along the surface in Cat Cay Bay.. remarkable because it’s absolutely dead
calm (quite unusual!) and the flat surface acts like a mirror when seen from
underneath.
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#368 - Bob Sims collecting algae
off the roots of the mangrove trees in Cat Cay Bay. Again, here, the full
color of the scene comes through. The shallow sea floor is loaded with algae
and small corals, and the roots are loaded with various types of algae and
sponges. Bob is an easy photographic subject because his
collecting/snorkeling techniques are so graceful that he doesn’t stir up the
mud … |
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#375 - The diver is at the
bottom of a sand pit in the Cat Cay Bay lagoon. Although the shallow areas
of Cat Cay are clear and thickly carpeted with living algae and corals, the
pits are always murky and only a single type of penicillium algae grows
there… looking like little brushes sprouting from the sand at a depth 45
feet. |
#538 - This is a beautiful little
spot only about 200 feet from the research station. A series of isolated coral
heads sprout out of the sand bottom, and there are always schools of french
grunts hanging around. Late in the afternoon, the slanting sunlight makes the
gorgonian “bushes” glow with backlight. Snorkeling at 15 feet. |
#570 - Marine botanist Suzanne
Fredericq, a professor at Lafayette, Louisiana is collecting algae off the
deeper side of the research station at Carrie Bow Cay. Here, at about 60 feet,
the image would be completely blue (as seen in the background) except I’m using
two flash units to correct the color in the foreground. Underwater flash has a
very limited range, perhaps 10 feet before it too becomes only blue light. |
#614 - This is even further down
the ocean side slope off Carrie Bow Cay. Jim Norris is the closest
diver; Bob and Fred are deeper down the slope. This is what it looks like
without any added flash; solid blue. Jim and I are at a depth of 70 feet,
and the sand bottom below left is about 100 feet. |
#621 - Using flash on the left
side to add color to the foreground coral and tube sponges. Depth about 60
feet.
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#707 - Jim Norris collecting in
about three feet of water, Fred in the background. This is another
interesting biological area; the constant pounding of waves over this area
has reduced the coral to slabs of rubble and not much can grow there. What
algae does grow is constantly grazed upon by herbivorous fish. |
#777 - Suzanne is holding out her
collecting bag and some algae she just uprooted from the shallow sand bottom
off of Man-O-War Cay which shows in the background. This type of
“over/under” image can only be done using a large dome port over the
cameras’ lens, and the water level is constantly moving across the image..
the best results are part skill and a lot of luck and timing. To get really
good shots you’d have to shoot a dozen frames or more in the hope that one
would have the water level exactly where you wanted it.. It’s easy with
digital, but I can’t do it with film, since I’ve only got 36 shots to a
roll, and there are a lot of other things I’m trying to photograph on the
same dive.
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#791 - On my last dive of the
trip I came across a six foot nurse shark (mostly harmless) “sleeping” under
a coral shelf at 50 feet. It was so nonchalant that I could lie flat on the
sand bottom next to it about three feet away to get this image with a wide
angle lens. I wish I had a flash on the camera this dive but I’d decided to
go light and left it back in the lab.
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Beach Camera - And a “hero shot”
of yours’ truly, camera in hand back on Carrie Bow Cay.. photo by Jim Norris
while I was prowling the island looking for shots.. |
Chip Table - Another shot of
the ‘main square” of the island’s lab building. I’m sitting at the picnic
table/conference table/workbench downloading my dive computer’s
memory. Debra Jahn (in the bikini) is a visitor to the lab. The island
Station Manager, who keeps everything running and the scientists out of
trouble, is Bert Pfeiffer, sitting on the steps. A quiet morning at the
office. |
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