Catalina Weekend 11-7-08 (Part 2 of 3 - "the Wides") ** FRIDAY **

[Mo2vation]

Here are some of the Wide Angles from the weekend. Well, really from two days of shooting.

We landed on Thursday night, and after some other commitments Friday AM, we hit it hard Friday and Saturday while we could dive. Shot logs below:

Friday
Dive 1 (12-24mm Wide Zoom): Valiant, Swim Platform, Bat Ray footprint, Swim Platform, Chica Zoom in the schools, and the 'dette in the Kelp shot

Dive 2 (12-24mm Wide Zoom): Tank Panty Installed - All of the Sue Jac shots - Claudette, the fish, etc.


Dive 3 (105mm Macro): Sue Jac Tiny Tunes Fed Ex, Swim Platform Octopus


Saturday
Dive 1 (105mm Macro): Valiant Nudis - Fed Ex, Limbaughs, Mexichromis. Also the "Dette Licks a Fed Ex" series, the Flying Fed Ex

Dive 2 (10.5mm Fish Eye): Kelp sun ray shots, including "Ripping Current"

Dive 3 (10.5mm Fisheye): Dette in the Kelp series shot at the "Sunny Glen", Fish schools, Dette on the sail boat wreck by the Kismet

Dive 4 (10.5mm Fisheye): Night dive shot of Dette and Cody


Sunday
Dry shots - kids playing the tide game, tides and wind shots, Casio at twilight, St Lauren hotel night shot, Country Club night shots. The dry shots can be found here: Drynessness


Monday
Not-so-wind shots


Conditions were pretty good in the park. They were also pretty good on the Valiant, at least until the friggen clowns from the Mr. C dive boat literally lawn darted on top of Dette and I while we were shooting (I'm talking about you, you bearded loser with the one pink fin who landed on his head between Claudette and I, silting up my shot and scaring the crap out of me.)

Of course, moments later, the load of sad, severely over-weighted old men with tiny members landed on the deck with an explosion, pulled their tools out of their bags and began to hack away at this ship that's been sitting there for 78 years - destroying habitat and killing things. Nice job, idiots. Hope you're proud.

Here are some of the wides from the two days of diving. The Macros will be up sometime this weekend. Claudette the Toad Nudi Licker is a priceless series.

The full gallery of shots can be seen here: Linky


Enjoy.


---
Ken


FRIDAY SHOTS

Valiant Hull - Dette on the port side of the Valiant - probably at about 90 FSW or so. I love how the gorgonians have taken over the starboard side.




Valiant Hull #2 - Another of her on the V. This one's a little tighter, and she's flashing a fine ATP.




Sheckler Valiant - 'Chica on the bow sprit (?) of the Valiant. This is an homage to Dale Sheckler. If you get it, you get it. The second shot below is the same shot, but it opens to about 2500 pixels wide (not 1200 like the rest)






Dette Approaching the Bow - this is dette on top




Dette Over Valiant Bow - anyone who's dived the Valiant knows the bow is instantly recognizable. I wanted to get a shot of her over the full sized bow. As we were setting this up, the school of Blacksmith showed up.





Where the Bat Ray wasn't... - we saw several Bat Rays on the way out to the Val and on the way back. But we kinda missed this one. I looked over and saw a Bat Ray-shaped hole, still steaming. Missed it by seconds.




Chica on the Platform - this was shot on the way back from the Valiant. One of the themes from this weekend were the Garibaldi sneaking into the shots. On this one, a Gari plays peek-a-boo at the bottom of the frame.




Dette in the Kelp - on the way back from the swim platform, we stopped off in the shallows (30-ish) to off gas a bit and play in the kelp with the huge schools of Jack Macs. I put Claudette with the sun at her back and got a tight shot of her in the kelp. Very SoCal.


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More Friday Shots Below

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[Mo2vation]

Chica Zoom in the school after the kelp shot, we moved over to get some shots of Claudette going zoom zoom though the schools of fish. The water was pretty clear and the sun was at a great angle to light things up. After some shot of her playing, I was feeling it so I kept moving in closer and closer. On one of the shots, she almost brained me with the scoot as she came out of a particularly robust upside-down corkscrew move.





















Another school of zoom after several passes with the school above, Claudette and I moved shallower to continue our burn off. Here are some shots from the shallower location. I love that each shot in a series, although from the same place and with a few minutes or moments of each other conveys a different emotion and tells a different story.


















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Here are some more shots from Friday the Sue Jac series. The wreck of the Sue Jac is one of my favorite features in the park. It usually packed with most of the ParkÃÔ nudis, is very current prone and generally has a different feel and vibe from the rest of the place.

In the last series of Monkey Diving shots, I was unhappy with the AL80 just hanging out there, so we came up with the idea for a Tank Panty essentially a black spandex bag we could put over the tank so it wouldnÃÕ be all reflective. We wanted to try it out before we took it monkey diving, so Dette wore it on the Sue Jac dive.


Dette ATP in the School there are rarely large schools of Jack Macs over on the Sue Jac. Its just not where they roll. We took this opportunity to get some shots of them. Chica parked the scoot and kicked it old school.




Sue Jac Rush here are a couple of shots of the fish on the ÁËac




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[drbill]

Was this the same dive I was on with you? It looks clearer than I remember. And not a single picture of the good Dr. Bill? Oh, I just looked in the mirror... now I understand why not! Thanks again Claudette for the tow in back of your X-Scooter.

 

[Mo2vation]

Was this the same dive I was on with you? It looks clearer than I remember. And not a single picture of the good Dr. Bill? Oh, I just looked in the mirror... now I understand why not! Thanks again Claudette for the tow in back of your X-Scooter.

The Valiant dive the 3 of us dived was on Saturday - the same day it was raining clowns from the Mr. C dive boat. I was shooting Macro that dive - that's the Fed Ex lick dive...

I'll have the macro's done in a day or so.

Our Saturday Valiant dive was clear (until the wreck wrecking raining silt bombs lawn darted onto the deck) but not as clear as it was in these Friday pics.

Good to see you last weekend.

---
Ken