now after diving both raja ampat, bunaken, and wakatobi i have to say...

[Cali_diver]

Have you seen Alex's rant about this regarding photo comps? It was a pretty epic takedown

Agree entirely though. Seen one too many guides harassing critters. It's part of the reason I am still staying at one particular resort in Lembeh, despite the resort going downhill...My favourite guide is there, and I know he respects the critters. He'll pull me away if he thinks it's enough. I don't want to lose my favourite guide!

I love hearing that your guide will pull you away, so often they just want to please you!!!

 

[dirtfarmer]

Have you seen Alex's rant about this regarding photo comps? It was a pretty epic takedown

Agree entirely though. Seen one too many guides harassing critters. It's part of the reason I am still staying at one particular resort in Lembeh, despite the resort going downhill...My favourite guide is there, and I know he respects the critters. He'll pull me away if he thinks it's enough. I don't want to lose my favourite guide!

I have seen his rant. I think it took a lot of guts to call out the professionals that we aspire our photos to come close to. When we see a photo in a magazine or on the Internet we often for unrealistic expectaions. The photo of the pygmy and ladybug shrimp I speak of was in a competition, which I was pleased with the judges to excersice discretion and not reward bad behavior.
I've had to scold guides, who are just trying to make me happy. My favorite guide in lembeh is top notch but occasionally I have to wave him off.

 

[Dan]

Lesson learnt. Thanks for all of the comments. I removed the picture to avoid copy cat of this bad behavior.

 

[anenomefishman]

i just try to get a few loclal photos. got some good ones.

 

[Dan]

Photographers can be detrimental to the environment/aimals they are taking photos in/of .Guides looking to please their guests sometimes will go to no ends to get that critter positioned for the perfect shot. Every once and a while I will tell my guide to back off if they are going to far. I'll even tell another diver they are crushing coral or going to far. Mostly they take offense and that can lead to hurt feeling and uncomfortable situations. Hell my last time in Lembeh I 'm shooting video of a flamboyant cuttlefish hunting and another diver comes up with his video lights blaring scaring the flamboyant causing him to stop hunting. Needless to say I lost my cool, gave him some terse words turned around a made sure I kicked up lots of sand to give him a taste of his own medicine. Not my finest moment, but I was tired of people barreling in while I was shooting something,bringing waves of silt because they can't keep their fins off the sand. Needless to say that diver didn't talk to me for the rest of the time they were there.

Sometimes us amateur photographers have been led to high expectations from seeing professional photos of say a emporer shrimp perfectly posed between that nudis rhinospheres, or the worst case Ive seen was a ladybug shrimp sitting on top of a pygmy seahorse. How pray tell did that get there?
DanT I'm not smacking you down but the pointer is going to far. Shutter delay is one reason I'm upgrading my camera. These days if that pygmy seahorse has been blasted in the face by the strobes of other divers I'll look to see if it's positioned for a good shot and I'll try a a few, but I won't ask my guide to move him, or shoot 20 shots hoping for a lucky one. I wish we all could have more respect for the creatures we love so much, we just need to not love them to death.
That said danT please don't hate me or stop posting here, I enjoy your posts.

Sometimes I do need smacking.

Can't understand people take pictures of Pygmy so many times. If you are the 1st one on the site, you may be lucky to see its face looking at you. But, as soon as you blind it with your flash, it'll turn its back to you & you are done shooting. Often I'll be 2nd in line, I just watch my dive buddy taking the shot and swim away, because I won't have a chance to get a good shot any more.

 

[WetPup]

I love hearing that your guide will pull you away, so often they just want to please you!!!

Don't get me wrong, I've seen some abhorrent behaviour by guides and photographers in the name of getting "that shot"... But not everyone is like that.

Honestly, the worst guides I ever saw for harassing marine life (not just macro critters) was in Fiji. Lembeh at least tends to attract a slightly more experienced crowd. Fiji is primarily newly certified divers, many of whom seemed to be looking for photos of then riding on the back of a turtle...Which I have seen guides encourage.

 

[Dan]

A dive guide in East Cape (north of Cabo San Lucas) grabbed a puffer & made puffed up. I wasn't impressed.

 

[Luko]

View attachment 378410
I rather spend time in Tulamben than going to Alor. It is a bit cumbersome to go to Alor. You need to fly from Denpasar to Kupang & then to Alor with unreliable domestic airlines. Other than Rhinopias and a site with anemones everywhere, the underwater scene is pretty average.

Underwater scene pretty average? ho humm... here's some average photos of the average Alor scene (you'll notice I' didn't select any macro shots, though I have plenty of them and sorry I wasn't able to get a decent shot pf the hammerheads I saw on 3 dives).
I cannot see any place in Indonesia other place than Raja Ampat where there is more fish, I prefer Alor than Komodo for instance.

 

[Luko]

Ambon is good, but...We found some pretty strong currents there, and it made macro photography very difficult. Maybe we just had bad luck, but when I visit somewhere specifically to do macro and supermacro, strong ripping currents are not particularly welcome. The wide angle in Ambon was ok, but nothing to really write home about.

Ambon is weird in terms of currents, in 3 stays I had ripping currents when I dived with Blue Motion that was a new operation at the moment and very easy currents to handle when I dived with Blue Rose and their amazing senior macro guide Robert who unfortunately left. It's a pity because I take him as probably the best guide in Ambon and one of the 2-3 best guides I ever dived with. I guess it's all about knowledge of the spots and diving at the correct timing.
I liked the WA spots in Ambon, some spots are amazing like Kota Pintu an underwater arch, but you have to go further in teh Lesa islands Haruku, Molana and Nusa Laut to find world class sites. The dive operations seldom go there, Blue Rose used to when they were located south of Ambon.

Kota Pintu Ambon :


Nusa Laut Ameth coral gardens


Molana south

 

[Dan]

Pretty cool pictures. Thanks for posting, Luko. I guess I've been spoiled rotten by the underwater scenery of Misool. I must have missed those dive sites. I stayed in Pantar.

I remember seeing no manta, no sharks and only very few pelagic. There were plenty of those fish traps on the bottoms. Some of the trevallies were caught in the bamboo fish traps. Saw giant frog fish & cool mandarin fish in Mandarin Slope though and Rhinopia for the first time in Ampera.

I'll give Alor another try next time via liveaboard, crossing from Ambon to Alor. I'm just worry about missing flight connection in Kupang or have to wait another day there & messing up my international return flight. May be I try going the other way, crossing from Alor to Ambon. Since flight from Ambon to Jakarta with Garuda is more reliable.