The pic you never took

[Santa]

Dang - you just missed it and now noone´s ever going to believe or understand.

- Or maybe not. I fyou could just visualize ... use your words ...

I'll believe you if you tell me about the best pic you ever never took.

For starters this one's my buddy Martins. He's a German from Peru with a Danish passport and he once found the skull of a giant sloth in some desert and had his name in a famous natural history mag. He also, once found 23 brass nazi ships propellers in a wreck at 15 metres and would you know it: He and his buddies donated everything to science even though each propeller would've fetched 10.000 dollars on the german market (the only market he checked out, no reason to get all worked up).

Anyhow the pic that he missed is prosaic compared to all that: Just a jellyfish with 3 metre tentacles a few of which got caught on the shot line, fixating it. Magically this happened exactly on the edge of the thermocline so the tentacles spread along it to all sides making it look like some wonderful mutated underwater sun with rays going horisontally in everywhich direction.

I'm sure you can visualize this and should you find it inconsequential or drab remember I'm just trying to leave the stage open and welcoming for the wonderful pic that YOU never took.

 

[Green_Manelishi]

Dang - you just missed it and now noone´s ever going to believe or understand.

- Or maybe not. I fyou could just visualize ... use your words ...

I'll believe you if you tell me about the best pic you ever never took.

For starters this one's my buddy Martins. He's a German from Peru with a Danish passport and he once found the skull of a giant sloth in some desert and had his name in a famous natural history mag. He also, once found 23 brass nazi ships propellers in a wreck at 15 metres and would you know it: He and his buddies donated everything to science even though each propeller would've fetched 10.000 dollars on the german market (the only market he checked out, no reason to get all worked up).

Anyhow the pic that he missed is prosaic compared to all that: Just a jellyfish with 3 metre tentacles a few of which got caught on the shot line, fixating it. Magically this happened exactly on the edge of the thermocline so the tentacles spread along it to all sides making it look like some wonderful mutated underwater sun with rays going horisontally in everywhich direction.

I'm sure you can visualize this and should you find it inconsequential or drab remember I'm just trying to leave the stage open and welcoming for the wonderful pic that YOU never took.

Well, I coulda had my pic taken with Jessica Alba at DEMA 2005 but I did not. I chose Norma Jean instead. What a woman !!!

 

[vladimir]

One of my first trips with a camera was aboard the MV Fantasea out of Phuket. I had an almost brand new Nikonos V with a 20mm lens and a single sb102 or 103 strobe (the explo0ding one.) Mark Strickland was too busy working on a book to give me a photography course, but he was very helpful and gave me a half a clue on settings, composition, etc. At Richelieu Rock my buddy and I encountered a small, young whale shark, maybe 18 feet long, and swam alongside it for 15 minutes or so, me feverishly snapping through my 36 shots. Surprise, the shots came out perfectly; well lit, nicely composed, shot from 2 or 3 feet away. Mark said--I think in all honesty--that he wished he'd shot that roll.

Well, I traveled a lot back then, and of course showed everybody those slides. Somewhere between Thailand, Singapore, NY and London, I lost the slides. Nobody believes I took them, and I don't blame you. As my girlfriend is fond of saying,"If you don't have the picture, you didn't see it." So, those are the pictures I sort of never took.

 

[Santa]

At least you've got witnesses, somewhere out there ;o)

 

[Wobbegong_Thai]

two year ago at a site called Hin Dange in the south andaman sea, Thailand.
I don't have my own camera, so normally I just lead the dive.

On our last dive there, another dive leader lend me his Sony DSC-P9 because he want to take the video camera down.
I'd took some (not so good) pictures as the dive went on.. without much expectation of anything exciting.

By the end of the dive, while we're at the safety stop, I turn around to check if all my groups were ok.

A large black-white diamond-shaped appeard behind one of my group, of course, 3-4m Manta Ray had approached out group from behind...
I bang my tank to let my group knows, pointing out the manta to them..
we all turned around as the Manta is half-circling us... at distance no more than 5m

then, I felt something toucing my forearm.... it's the camera, I totally forgot about it.
so I grab the camera, turn it on, aim.... and shoot....

Well... all I got was a little white tip on its wing as it swam out....

 

[james croft]

Almost all of my diving is blackwater diving and so I try to go to a place now and then where there is clear, warm water. I had decided to take my daughter to the Crystal River in Florida to see some manatees. It would be her first manatee experience and she had just started snorkeling. The time of the year was not right for seeing many manatees, but we located a few of them. We got a bumpy start when the first manatee swam up to us and frightened my daughter. She climbed up on top of my head and began screaming for help. She almost drowned me in the process. Fortunately the manatee took this in stride and I got my daughter calmed down. After a couple of minutes she was having a great time playing and swimming with the manatees. I had brought my Nikonos with me but the water we were in was in the river and did not have the clarity of the water in the springs. I still took a number of pics that turned out OK, but nothing to brag about. Later on that day my daughter was snorkeling above me as I dove King Spring. I looked up and saw a large manatee swimming side by side with my daughter. I was a picture you could not have composed if you tried. Perfect viz and framed by the walls of the spring. I was looking up at them and grabbed my camera and tried to take the shot. Of course I was out of film. I still kick myself for that missed oportunity.

 

[kapula]

To Wobbegong Been to Hing daeng a few times and it's just spectacular spot! Haven't been that lucky with mantas over there but in the similans I have had some fun with mantas twice a manta has gotten interested in our group and come below 1 metre from us. Vibration in the water... fellas just like the electric field I make or my camera.

 

[DBailey]

Time #1

When I was in the Galapagos (Wolf Island), it was the last dive of the day. The dive plan was that we would descend, hang out on the lava rock, and watch the marine life parade by. If a whale shark came by, we all agreed that we'd haul ***** after it. THe group was the divemaster (strong kicker), myself and three others.

There we were at about 60 feetwith a viz of about 40'. Hammerheads, Eagle Rays, Galapagos Sharks, etc. were going left to right. Since everything was coming from the left, we never really looked to the right. Wouldn't you know it, from the right came a 'small' whale shark. It was only about 20' long, flanked by 4 Galapagos sharks (one on each side, one above, one below). The dive master and I took off after it into the stiff current and looked back. The other three stayed at the rock not wanting to swim into the current. The DM and I looked at each other, shrugged and went back to the rock to stick with the group. In defeat, I snapped a couple pictures, but none really turned out. In one photo, I can sort of see the spots of the whale shark. I know it is the right picture, but no one else can really make out the whale shark.

Time #2

On another live aboard in the Bahamas, we went to a shark feed location. Our boat didn't do the feeds, but her sister-boat does. So when we pull up, the sharks show up. They eventually leave after they realize we don't have any food, but they will swim nice and close for a while. Long story made short, my batteries died about 15 minutes into the dive. The shots I missed:

- My girlfriend (and buddy) was casually swimming toward me, a 5' reef shark was swimming alongside her. My girlfriend would nearly kick the shark with her fins on each frog kick.

- My girlfriend was hovering staring at a shark. It swam directly at her and turned at the last second. I could have gotten a shot with her and the shark nose-to-nose about 1 foot about.

- I doubt I would have gotten this shot, but a friend of mine was swimming along. A shark was behind her. The shark opened its mouth a couple of times, not biting, but just 'working its jaw'. Anyway, if I could have captured the shot, it would have looked like the shark was about to bite her fins.

Good memories, but no batteries.

 

[Wristshot]

Not Diving related, but I gotta share.

In 2003 on a vacation in Oregon, I was the passenger in my SUV. It was one of the few miles (160) that my GF was driving instead of me (3300+ miles total) We were driving North out of Grants Pass. The road is cut into a hillside, about 100-150 feet above the Rogue River.

We are in the slow lane, next to the guardrail. From the passenger seat, I can see down into the rushing river below. As we are motoring along, I see an Osprey a little ways ahead, and about 15 feet below us, just on the other side of the guardrail. The road is steep, and Linda was driving cautiously on the mountain road. Long strong strokes of the Osprey's wings is keeping him climbing, and we are barely catching up to him. I am sitting back in the seat, watching him with interest as we slowly catch up to the Osprey, while he continues to slowly rise above the guardrail. My eyes are glued to him as we get closer and closer.

As we catch and pass him in the forward direction, he catches us in the vertical direction. As we pass him, he is directly to the side of my window, no more than 20 feet away. He is a magnificent bird, with huge wings, stroking powerfully against the wind and the load. What load? As he clears the guardail, I see a beautiful Rainbow Trout grasped in his talons. The Trout was straining to breathe, and to get away. The osprey was straining to hold onto his meal, and to gain speed and elevation. I was straining to contain myself as I was looking directly at the most beautiful natural scene I could remember.

In the morning sunlight I could see the bright colors for which a Rainbow Trout is so aptly named. The pink and green colors and the shine from the skin. I could even see the distinctive spots because I am that close, and that focused.

Focused? Why were my eyes focused on the bird and prey? Why wasn't my camera focused? The camera was right there, at my feet, loaded and ready to go. I was purely fixated, and unable to look away.

Fortunately I still have the vivid image in my mind, but if I had it on film I would have been able to sell that image for sure.

And that, my friends, is the best picture I never took.


Wristshot

 

[Cacia]

ohhhh, you had to remind me. 45 ft whale, ascent line of the Corsair bomber, swims up 20 feet from four of us and stayed for 15 minutes until we had burned through all of our air. A couple times, I could have reached out and touched him. No Camera. But, Suzette of Captain Bruce's was with me so I have a witness and someone to reminisce with.