White Sharks, Part Three: Into The Cage

So there I was, a 3+ metre white shark prowling the bait tied off from the boat, a diver in the cage already, and me suited up and ready to join him.  Was I nervous?  Hell yes.  I'm nervous anywhere my cameras get near water.



The gear I'd brought for the dive was relatively inexpensive: My 10 MP Canon Powershot G12 and the Canon WP-DC34 housing. I did have a Dicapac splash bag just in case I wanted to get my DSLR's under water, but I'd recently replaced the crappy plastic port for good quality glass and hadn't had time to leak-test it thoroughly. It was mainly there if I wanted to get some off-camera light from a flash and optical slave unit, or for wet topside shooting.



The great thing is, there's such a range of good affordable underwater point and shoots or point and shoot housings that anyone can do this and get great shots now.  This is the 21st century version of big game hunting.  Print and frame your trophy picture and put it on the wall for all to see, while the animal lives to thrill you another day.  The light was dull, so I had my ISO set to 800. Skipper Mike clipped on the hose for my air supply, and in I got.



I was expecting a shock of cold water but the suit seals made it quite a painless experience. The hardest part was to keep from bobbing up to the top of the cage as the buoyancy of the 7.5 mm suit meant I was still a little under-weighted. Thankfully Mike had tied some rope to the bottom of the cage for foot holds. They were sorely needed, as the swell was shaking the cage like a cheap cocktail. With one hand on your camera, it's not easy to stay steady and line up shots.



I expected my heart to be racing by now. Maybe it was, I didn't notice. I was focused on breathing steadily, keeping an eye out for the shark, and getting my camera in position. Actually, my first impression was "Bugger, the visibility isn't as good as it looked from above". A week of bad weather had put quite a bit of sediment into Stewart Islands usually clear waters. So while the shark wasn't in sight, I got a picture of my cage companion, Ulrik Olsen. At least I think it's Ulrik. Hard to tell under all that gear. Could'a been the gimp for all I know. Over in the cage I call the cheese grater, Mike Bhana was ready for some 3D action.



Here's my tip for shooting wildlife: Keep one eye out for the critters, and keep another on your companions, especially the more experienced ones, since they're likely to see your quarry before you. They just know how the animals behave and where they'll be. By the time I'd steadied myself to get a decent shot of Mike in his cage, I figured out he was actually filming back in my direction. Well not exactly my direction. He was aiming slightly off to my right, straight out from my cage. I turned to look, and here's what I saw:



Oh.

Now a sane person might get a shock to see this and to be honest, before I became such a photo nut, I may well have been looking at a serious bill for de-fouling the wetsuit. Instead, I just thought "Damn, maybe I need to get out and get my 7D in the splash bag with the 10-22mm EF-S wide angle lens if he's going to be this close". True. My next thought? "If I use flash, all I'm gonna get is a curtain of murk".

I know wildlife and conflict shooters get this focus when they're looking in the viewfinder that makes them master that healthy fear of risky situations. It's what gets them the shot. It has also gotten a few of them hurt or killed, but the good ones preserve a tiny percentage of their awareness for self preservation too, and they're my heroes. The closest I've come to that focus was shooting priceless works for an art gallery. I was so focused on moving in to re-frame, I walked into my ladder and nearly sent it crashing into a Goldie and a Rita Angus self portrait (that's what public liability insurance is for, children).

Anyway, here I was, in the cage, in the zone, and watching this beautiful fish glide around us, in heaven.



Seriously, this was not a monster, just a beautiful, powerful animal.



I think I saw two or three different animals. It was hard to tell, being so obsessed with just trying to frame them up in the rocking cage. But they weren't acting aggressively at all. Just inquisitive, occasionally testing the bait or the seal decoy with their teeth.



I was a way off getting prize-winning shots but I always knew this was going to be a learning trip. It takes experience to deal with all the complications of the underwater environment and moving animals before you can think about things like composition and including other objects for scale. But to give you a better idea of the size of this beauty, that's a 3m rigid bottom inflatable he's behind.



15 or 20 minutes into it - it could have been longer, I wasn't looking at my watch - and I was cold and cage-tossed enough to get out and let someone else have a look. As I climbed back on deck and dumped the weight harness, I remember having a little reality check. What did I feel? The only word I can find is: Serene. Excitement came a little later. The look in Mike Bhana's eyes pretty well sums up our spirits, although this was a fairly typical day at the office for Mike, lucky bugger.



We'd all been in except for Lemuel, who didn't dive and was happy to see the beasts from topside.  No pressure from us.  Then reality set in: we'd been adventuring all day on light snacks.  Time for real food, so the fishing rods came out.  Not sampling Stewart Island's abundant table fish equates to the sin of sloth when you're down there.  I got a barracuda (fail) a dogfish (fail) and finally, a blue cod.  Lemuel caught most of the cod, and soon enough, Skipper Mike had us anchored in the calm bay at Port William, had fired up the BBQ, and we engaged in the much more worthwhile sin of gluttony.

Beer began to flow. So did the conversation. James's fine single malt scotch Whisky was produced, and in celebratory mood, I stood on the deck with a glass of Australian tawny port and a Cuban cigar (which I never inhale and only indulge in about once a year, kids). Spirits were high, but we were mindful not to overdo it. After all, we had another day's diving ahead of us.

Especially young Lemuel.

More in the pipeline.

White Sharks, Part Two

Late update: Shark scientist Malcolm Francis of NIWA has seen some of my shark pictures from this trip and gleaned some useful data from them. That really does round this amazing trip off for me.


How much more can I pack in to just a few days?  Shark diving, a band gig and now a copyright infringement to be sorted.  More on that later perhaps.  This post is about our white shark cage dive trip to Stewart Island.



At 7.00 Thursday, we slid out of our sleeping bags on board the Candice-Britt, to meet the full compliment from Auckland who had driven down from Christchurch at 2.00 am.  There would be no slap-up breakfast as we were all keen to get under way. Cage secured, boat fueled, a cup of tea and a cold pie, and we were out into the swell, crossing Foveaux Strait bound for the Titi Islands, off Stewart Island, NZ.



As it turned out, the swell had eased nicely and the crossing was a breeze, made easier by the fact that the Candice Britt is a nice powerful catamaran that cut through the waves faster than bad news spreads on Twitter. Not wasting any time, our deck hand Johnno got to work preparing some shark bait.



No boat on Foveaux strait goes unaccompanied. Mollymawks, or more properly, small albatrosses are your constant companions. We were tracked by Shy and Buller's albatrosses. Their soaring flight is just beautiful to watch, and fun to try and get a good shot of from a rolling deck. If you're not a gear-head, feel free to skip the next para:

I used my 100-400 f/4 L to good effect here.  Its image stabilisation is the best thing since autofocus, but there were times when the 24-70mm got some nice shots too.  I should add that most of my topside images were taken on my Canon 5DmkII or 7D, while I had my Powershot G12 and underwater housing along for sub-surface action.  Just for emergencies, I had a 450D and a splash bag with a 580EXII and 540EX flash and some optical slaves at the bottom of my sleeping bag, along with a small flask of whisky, a cuban cigar and half a bag of corn chips.  If you're serious about photography you really have to be prepared.




About an hour after leaving Bluff harbour, we anchored off one of the Titi islands. The Titis are also known as the Muttonbird islands. For centuries, local Maori have been coming here to gather the Sooty shearwater, a local delicacy - although those with an uneducated palate would liken it to a tough, greasy, salty seagull - only not as appetising.

It was time to gather sharks and our anticipation was building although you might not have noticed. I think the excitement was tempered by the thought of getting into that cold water. It's certainly not for the faint of heart. This is the southern ocean, 11 or 12 degrees C on a good day. If you're lucky, you'll last about an hour without a wetsuit before hypothermia gets you, although there are tales of some hardy types actually lasting over 12 hours and living to tell the tale. But the water wasn't going to put us off. There was work to do: A berley trail to be laid, bait to throw in, and just to tempt the big predators a little more, a little seal pup decoy made from foam.  It made sense that the seal silhouette would attract sharks, but who'd have thought it would work on albatross too?



As we waited for the guests of honour to arrive, Mike got onto the hydraulic crane and lowered the cages into the water.







The main cage is nice and sturdy, with room for four divers. Mike Bhana's personal cage was a rather different affair however.



Our skipper had whipped it up from aluminium tubing the night before. One man could easily lift it, and I was thinking one large shark could easily pop it apart. That is, if it didn't want to just poke its jaws in through the massive gaps in the bars and pull you out. You'd have to be nuts to think you're safe in that thing with a big shark around. Or you'd have to be Mike Bhana. Mike's one of the most experienced shark shooters (as in camera, not gun) on the planet and I've seen him fend off dozens of big sharks with his camera. If you didn't know him, you'd think it was some kind of crazy machismo combined with a death wish, but he has a real love of sharks, combined with years of experience. I'm sure he'd get out of the water if he thought he wasn't in control of the situation. I'm just not sure if I've seen him do it yet.

Once the cages were in, there was nothing left to do but wait for the sharks to show. Luckily for us our skipper Mike Haines (did I mention his business, Southern Aqua Adventures?) knows just the best spot to find large white sharks, and some showed up almost immediately.  This was the little one:









Skipper Mike had done his part. Now it was time to do ours. I'm not sure if it was the sharks or the water temperature, but there was a complete lack of gung ho about the moment, as a few of the lads just shrugged and began to suit up. We were about to come face to face with one of the planet's greatest living predators. Sure I was nervous. I hadn't dived in a few years, and the last time I was in a cage I found it terrifying, waiting for a Mako shark to appear from out of nowhere. This time the sharks were right there, and they were huge - nearly 4m long and of massive girth. But to be honest, this time, I couldn't wait.  This was going to be my first chance to do some underwater photography, and it was with one of the most spectacular subjects I could imagine.  I had a challenge to face, and I was totally focused on that.  While the first divers went in, I prepped my camera and underwater housing, put on my togs, and suited up. My time had come.



More of this story in the pipeline.

White Sharks, Part One

Got back from my White Shark cage dive trip to Stewart Island last night.  Headline: Photog has sublime couple of days off.  I have to prep for a gig tonight, so I can't write up the whole story yet, but here's how it starts...

Wednesday night I fueled the truck and hit the road with my old NHNZ colleague Lemuel Lyes, bound for Bluff. There we met friend and tourism consultant James Hacon over a beer and tried to contact the rest of the crew who were supposed to arrive from Auckland at various times that day.  The good news: Two were already there, Craig and Kaiser, hanging out at the fire station with our Skipper Mike Haines.  The bad news: the others were delayed by the volcanic ash cloud coming from Chile, and would have to drive down from Christchurch in rentals that night, arriving around 2.00 am.  The only thing for it was to head for our vessel, the Candice-Britt, load our gear and help skipper Mike get the dive gear and cages aboard.



No boats had been out all week, but the forecast was for easing seas, so it was with no little sense of excitement that we crawled into our sleeping bags and tried to sleep, disturbed only by the slop of waves against the hull, the hull occasionally crashing into the jetty, and the arrival of a travel-weary Mike Bhana and the rest of the Auckland contingent at around 2.00 in the morning.



Soon all aboard were bunked down and ready for the huge day that would begin at dawn, just a few hours away.

Gotta grab my guitars and harmonicas now and dash,  more in the pipeline.

More fishing

This may sound a little extreme, but the long haul of researching and writing the book I'm doing has had me itching for a little adventure, especially a short, intense one with some good photo opportunities.  So when my old friend and colleague Mike Bhana offered me the chance to join him and a bunch of other reckless types on a shark diving expedition, I was in from the start.

So here I am, checking my underwater housing and splash bag, thinking about what clothes to pack and hoping that the forecast 5m swell doesn't keep us from the sheltered anchorage on Stewart Island where we'll be cage diving with White Sharks.  Last time I got in a cage up in Tutukaka, the Makos we were burleying for didn't show, so this is my next big chance to get in the water with a real monster.  I've seen mature tiger sharks close up from topside, and dived in the same water - thankfully all I saw were some reef sharks that day - but I know that if we get the big whites we're expecting, this will be an intense experience.

And the bonus is that if everything else goes well, I'll get some good pictures.  Fingers crossed.  Hopefully I'll still have them all when I get back in a couple of days.  Wish me luck!

Marching with the Saints

Now and then I hear from my old collaborator Mike Thorsen who's now living on the island of St Helena with his wife Fran. We'll exchange words on each other's Flickr stream, or swap news about a new bit of gear we like the look of but can't possibly afford. It's the usual bloke's kind of conversation, just a few degrees above grunting and pointing, but it conveys plenty.

Now that they've been settled for a little while though, Mike and Fran are blogging about their time studying and protecting the island's incredibly fragile native flora, as well as a few other adventures: helping out with other wildlife surveys; shooting the odd wedding, or just learing about life among the Saints, as the locals are called.  It's a cool look at life on a tiny speck in the middle (and off to the right a bit) of the Atlantic Ocean.  Check out their Banzai Chicken Blog.

A little fishing

I've been itching for a little time off to do some recreational photography lately, but just haven't had the time, despite the awesome late autumn we've been having. Today though, I took a little time out today for a fishing expedition with Mrs C and Miss C(7).



Thought I'd play around with my new UW housing for the Canon G12 but the water was a little murky - not to mention cold - to get in and do a lot more than just a couple of shallow test shots. I'll just have to book a shark dive or something to give it a real shakedown.



But then I saw this.



A discarded carcass. I hate it when other anglers leave their mess around. Yes, I suppose it's just biomass being returned to the natural environment, but I'm sure it's better to bury your waste or at least fling it into the bush where it's not going to spoil anyone else's enjoyment. The clown who did this had to know that the place is also a drinking water reservoir for the city! Not a good look. So I decided to grab my other camera and work it into something with a bit more power. It could make a good bit of eco-ganda if you didn't know the real story.



In the end, I let Mrs C and Miss C(7) do all the fishing. I was happy enough with the pictures I'd caught.

Time

It'll be another month or two before I'm clear of writing my book and can devote all my time to photography again, but I can't wait (of course I'm still for hire 24/7).  Meanwhile, I've been out doing some shooting for the book, getting shots of some historic business premises about town.

I've been going out at various times of day to experiment with different looks.



As winter approaches and the sun gets lower in the sky, sometimes it's harder to get good light on some buildings.  If some of the building is in direct sun, the disparity between highlights and shadows is often just too great for a good image.  Rather than boost the fill light slider in post or make a high dynamic range picture, I'll shoot the structure in low light early or late in the day.   The architecture isn't so defined, but its a natural look and the whole building is evenly lit by the low ambient without hard shadows and highlights. It does mean using a tripod, since sometimes the shutter speed is around 1/15th, but I tend to use the tripod for landscapes anyway, and I'm liking the results.



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I'm also liking my assistant/model Miss C(7).  Not only does she watch my gear when I'm working, she also acts as a useful model when I'm shooting playground equipment.

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And the best part is, she still works for milk shakes.