WAKATOBI MARINE NATIONAL PARK, Sulawesi, Indonesia (March 2008)
The Wakatobi is the second largest marine national park in Indonesia and comprises a string of four main islands which collectively give the park its name. If remote diving is your idea of fun then there aren't many places quite like this. Despite a number of local communities, tourism is restricted to a luxury dive centre on the island of Tomia, and a research based volunteer organisation on the island of Hoga. It is the latter where I spend much of my time, typically a couple of trips per year. Although the bulk of my time spent on Hoga is for personal research, I was there in march 2008 to help lead a field course from the University of Essex. Although much of the trip was spent teaching and supervising in-water practicals, I made time for a few photography dives. As this was my first outing with the Canon 400D, the trip gave me the opportunity to get to grips with a dSLR system underwater. To view a selection of my shots from this trip click here.
March is an ideal time of year to photograph the reefs of the Wakatobi as visibility is extraordinary, up to 40-50m and consistently over 30m. Water temperatures also increase to an average 31°C, which makes diving that little more comfortable, perhaps even too hot at times!
The main aim of this trip was to develop my dSLR photography, I tried to photograph a range of subjects from macro to wideangle. I chose two lenses for this purpose: the Canon 60mm Macro and the Canon 15mm Fisheye, shooting both available light and artificially with two Sea & Sea YS-110 strobes. A magic filter was added for shallow water seascapes.
