Too crop or not to crop

Cropping is so subjective and I seem to be stuck on standard sizes. Everytime I stray from them, I end up recropping to a standard size. The pics above are a good example. The last crop is the one we are selling. I like it because its a standard size for easy framing and it shows the whole school of blue tangs in context. The first image is a close crop suggested by a friend of mine. I think it makes a nice abstract image, but looses context. The second image is a closer crop of just the school, but I don't think its a better crop than the one we're selling. Hope I made the right cropping choice.

Reef Squid Cute?

Yeah, I actually think they are. Especially when they are hanging out in rows at the beach or snuggling up like these two. Plus, the way they can change colors is awesome. Unfortunately, they are very hard to photograph. Which is why we don't sell this photo in our Etsy shop (http://www.hswtphotography.etsy.com/). But, I'll keep trying. One of these days I know I'm going to get the perfect shot. That's what keeps me jumping back into the pool!

And, as much as I like photographing fish (yes, squid are technically fish), it's the creatures that are really starting attract more and more of my attention. Like the red flame scallops and split-crown feather dusters that we saw in Panama. And, the Christmas tree worm hiding in lettuce coral in shallow water that was just too choppy for a good photo.

I hope I get a chance to photograph more creatures in the Bahamas! We're heading out in a little over a week and it's been a long time since I've had the chance to snorkel there.

Getting Ready for a Juried Show

We've been busily printing photos in preparation for our first juried art & craft show. So, I thought I'd share one of our photos that's only available at the show. Beautiful Teenager is a fine art photograph of an intermediate stage French angelfish. I took this picture while snorkeling in Grand Cayman in November, 2006. I recently went thru some of our older photos and reworked them in photoshop and got some amazing results. The only thing is that they were taken with 5 meg underwater cameras so they don't have enough pixels to be enlarged. Still it's nice to revisit these photos and make them available as 5x7s or 8x10s.

About nine years ago while on a fishing trip to Walker's Key I talked my future husband, Terry, into trying snorkling. The water was choppy and we were on a dive boat with about ten divers and two other snorklers. When asked if we knew how to snorkel, I immediately said yes without thinking that this was his first time. Trooper that he is, he got out in the swells and immediately fell in love with snorkeling. We've been snorkeling ever since.

Soon we started getting interested in trying to photograph all the incredible fish, coral, sponges, rays and other creatures we were seeing. This blog is about our journey into the world of underwater photography. I think our journey is unique because we don't scuba, we free dive. We can't sit on the bottom and wait for interesting fish to come out of their hiding places. We have to literally swim them down. We are trying to capture the perfect image while our subjects are moving, the water is moving and we are moving. I hope you'll click the picture to see the results of our efforts in our etsy store. And, that you'll come back to hear more about our adventures as I discuss our photos and our process.