Digital Immersions

Kittiwake's 9-year Retrospective

2012-01-09T07:18:00.000-08:00

I just returned from shooting a couple of days on Grand Cayman, in celebration of the one year anniversary of the Kittiwake being sunk as an artificial reef off Seven Mile Beach. Here's what she looks like today, a vignette of what she's become after a year in the sea.

But, getting any artificial reef to this point involves a long and arduous process that involves considerable money, commitment, and almost superhuman persistence. Here is a visual chronology of the Kittiwake, from her time being cleaned of contaminants in a Virginia shipyard, to final preparations and sinking at the predetermined wreck site on Grand Cayman, and finally some images of her now one year later.

In the Yard:

On Grand Cayman on day of sinking, January 5, 2011:

Celebrating her first year as a dive attraction that hosted 20,000 divers, well exceeding projections for success:

Digital Master Class with Stephen Frink

2011-12-27T13:33:00.001-08:00

Digital Master Class June 9-16, 2012 Now Open for Enrollment

Our photo course in Key Largo in June is one of the highlights of my year. I choose early June because it is the very best time of year to dive Key Largo. The seas are typically warm and calm, and the water clarity likely to be as good as it gets here ... 60-80 feet, sometimes better. We charter a private boat with Ocean Divers and choose the best sites for whatever optic we have in play at the moment. This year the dates are June 9-16, complete details at http://waterhousetours.com/instruction#6.

In addition to putting the very best Key Largo dive opportunities on our side, including the most abundant marine life anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, we have a stellar instruction staff. We are privileged to have Photoshop Hall of Fame and Canon Explorer of Light Eddie Tapp to weigh in on all things Photoshop, and Frazier Nivens to teach a module in underwater video with digital SLR cameras; both joining me in instruction. Class limited to 14 pax.

To gain better insight into the structure of this week, please see http://alertdiver.com/Immerse_Yourself_in_...raphy_Education, by one of last summer's seminar participants, Tim Grollimund.

For reservations or further information, please contact Barbara@stephenfrink.com or phone 800-445-3737.

Cars as Art at Ocean Reef

2011-12-03T13:10:00.000-08:00

Here are some visual vignettes of some of the gorgeous and significant automobiles shown at Ocean Reef's Vintage Weekend 2011.

Shark Shootout 2011

2011-11-20T07:27:00.000-08:00

I've just returned from leading the Shark Shootout 2011 at Stuart Cove's Dive Bahamas. After a several year hiatus, interrupted for no good reason other than other projects getting in the way, it was really fun to be back off the southwest end of New Providence Island with close friends Stuart and Michelle Cove.

It was interesting to note how much more evolved the shark interaction opportunities are now. We worked on the 200-foot shipwreck Ray of Hope, but created feeding stations at both bow and stern of the vessel so we could spread out the group and offer better access to the action and the definitive "bite" shot. We had sharks on reefs, from inside and outside of a shark cage, and along the reef and shipwreck in the more distant and wilderness setting of Shark Wall. The fewest number of sharks we ever had was maybe 8 out at shark wall, but in the heart of it all (Ray of Hope/Bahama Mama/Shark Cage) there must have been 4 dozen sharks spread out between two or three separate shark wranglers.

Until someone is truly immersed in Shark Shootout they'll never understand how different (and clearly better) the shark interaction provided here is as compared to a traditional group shark encounter. For photographers it is all about proximity to shark action, and that's what Shark Shootout provides better than any other event.

Wakatobi - Ever better

2011-10-21T23:36:00.000-07:00

I've just returned from a great trip to Wakatobi Resort, in Indonesia. It had been a few years since I had visited Wakatobi and found the resort continues to operate to a very high standard. Unbelievable, really, given the remote nature of the operation.

I'm not particularly a food enthusiast, but the quality and diversity of the cuisine served at Wakatobi was astounding. The boats are spacious and stable, the dive staff ultra-professional and accommodating. And, perhaps most significantly for a group of underwater photographers like ours, the photo opportunities were eclectic and of very high quality along reefs of pristine condition. We expected a lot, but expectations thankfully exceeded.

Key Largo Advanced Photo Course - August 2011

2011-08-06T07:19:00.000-07:00

I just wrapped a great week of diving in Key Largo, teaching my advanced session of my school of underwater photography. Wonderful photo-ops all week with a passionate and engaged group of students. Thanks again to Ocean Divers for such professional and friendly service.

Alaska Aboard Nautilus Swell

2011-07-17T20:16:00.000-07:00

I've just come home from a really wonderful trip aboard Nautilus Swell, doing a little diving along the Southeast Alaska coast, but really doing more topside photography. The whales and sea otters and steller sea lions all delivered, but the overall scenery and sheer magnificence of the setting greatly defined the experience.

The Nautilus Swell, a 90-foot tugboat has been tastefully refitted to become the perfect expedition boat for marine photography in the region. I'll write about it all in greater detail in the next issue of Alert Diver, but for now here is a preview of the photo-opportunities.

As final endorsement of the quality of the adventure, before I left the boat I booked another charter for August 2013. It is really that inspiring and productive.

Key Largo Digital Master Class - June 2011

2011-06-24T20:29:00.000-07:00

Each year I teach a couple of very advanced underwater digital imaging courses in my home town, Key Largo, Florida. I choose Key Largo for the wealth of photo opportunities, particularly in terms of abundant and approachable marine life.

For the past few years I have been fortunate enough to be joined by Eddie Tapp teaching the Photoshop tutorials. Like me, a Canon Explorer of Light, Eddie is additionally a member of the Photoshop Hall of Fame, and an all around nice guy. We enjoy not only the instruction, but the time together on the boat.

Recognizing that video techniques are now an ever larger part of our D-SLR workflow, I also booked Frazier Nivens, an Emmy-Award winning local pro videographer to teach a short module on UW video techniques.

All is all, it was a terrific week with good friends and wonderful dive services from our friends at Ocean Divers.

We are looking forward to next year's classes:

Key Largo - June 9-16, 2012
Bonaire - Divi Flamingo Beach - July 7-14, 2012 and
Captain Don's Habitat July 14-21, 2012

Here are some images of our week in Key Largo.

Oceanic White Tips - Cat Island, Bahamas

2011-05-14T08:12:00.000-07:00

Last week I enjoyed a wonderful opportunity to photograph oceanic white tip sharks in the stunningly clear waters off Cat Island in the southern Bahamas.

I've known for years the sharks are there, because the fishermen have long complained how difficult it is to get a fish to the boat without the sharks eating it first. In fact, one angler I talked to said that anywhere else he fishes for sailfish with a heavy line, but at Cat he chooses a much lighter fishing line and lets the sharks force the billfish to the surface, where he can quickly reel it in. It gives him a better chance to avoid the shark taking his fish, and also makes certain the sailfish is less fatigued when released, and therefore has a chance to avoid the shark at that point in the process of catch-and-release.

So, the stars aligned on collective schedules with long-time buddy Stuart Cove already on-island helping a non-profit do some shark tagging, while another friend, Marko Dimitrijevic, and I rendezvoused with Stuart for a quick 3 day shoot.

Here are some shots Marko got during the week, the photographer being pictured being me.

And, here are some of my shots from the week.

Great fun!

Alert Diver - On press for Spring 2011 issue

2011-05-01T15:55:00.000-07:00

I've just come back from another presscheck at the Quad Graphics plant in Sussex, WI, checking the color on the Sping 2011 issue of Alert Diver.

This is an important issue, as it is 116-pages, our biggest yet, and presents the results of our annual photo contest, run in conjunction with Nature's Best Magazine.

We arrived in the late afternoon on Easter Sunday, in preparation for our first color check at 3:00 AM. Barry Berg, our director of manufacturing, was on hand as well. Doing this same job for Surfing Magazine for more than 24-years, he's an experienced hand at this 24/7 immersion into the printing process.

The Quad Graphic plant is a massive 1.7 million square feet complex, although I can't say I saw much of it this time as we ran the covers on one press, and all the rest of the forms on another web press. We'd typically do 32-pages in one chunk, and thanks to our very talented and professional press professionals could check each of the 2 - 16 page forms almost simultaneously. That was a huge time savings, being consolidated like that. We've been on presses in the past that only ran 8-pages at a time and the whole process took forever. Despite the efficiency, we fell into a routine of an a few hours on press and maybe 3 hours sleep in between.

The whole manufacturing process is interesting to me. All the color is evaluated under carefully controlled lighting conditions, to standardize what we view in our computer screens, in my office, and in the prepress house when we evaluate color. This issue was further fascinating to me because we were printing on a new paper stock, 70-pound weight and from a sustainably managed forest with soy inks as per normal, but this time chosen for optimum whiteness. We can't print with white inks on a web press, so to achieve a purity of white in the photograph we have to depend on a white substrate ... the paper. We searched extensively for this particular stock and are thrilled with the opacity, whiteness, and gloss.

We have a fair bit of control over the final color even while on press. Not so much as we might have in the early stages of image processing in the computer and then when making the matchprints with the prepress house. But still, it is essential to be on press and see the ink applied to paper to achieve the optimal result.

After about 32-hours the last of the forms are signed-off as approved and the Spring Alert Diver is ready to head to the bindery and then the co-mail facility. Next stop ... our DAN member mailboxes!

Philippines Photo Tour to Dumaguete and Tubbataha

2011-04-03T18:07:00.000-07:00

The shot above is of me photographing a hawksbill turtle by my friend Tim Grollimund, one of our guests from a recent tour to the Philippines. In fact, I'm still at LAX, with a long layover before catching the Red-Eye home to MIA.

We chartered a week on the Atlantis Azores to Tubbataha Atoll, with a few shoot days at the Atlantis resort in Dumaguete at the front end of the tour. While we were hampered by strong winds for a couple of days that made for a bumpy ride to the atoll and some reduced visibility overall, when it was good it was very good!

Terrific hard corals at both Tubbataha and Apo Island (offshore of Dumaguete), while Tubbataha delivered the wall diving and Dumaguete was best for macro critters. Here's a brief overview of some of my photo-ops:

Shark Shootout Returns!

2011-03-17T06:41:00.000-07:00

In the years 2004 - 2007 Stuart Cove and I collaborated on a very successful series of shark photography events in the Bahamas. Hosted by Stuart Cove Dive Bahamas, the Shark Shootout provided close access to what has to be the world's largest population of Caribbean reef sharks amid diverse venues; including shallow reef, shipwrecks, and even a cage scenario (shooting sharks from both inside and outside the cage).

These were very popular events, but other projects and destinations intervened, and we both needed a break. But, looking back with nostalgia over some of the hot shots from Shark Shootouts past, we realized it was time to revisit this event.

We don't necessarily expect it to be an annual gig like we did in the mid-2000s, but for this November the rare opportunity exists for stellar photographic access to Caribbean reef sharks with a team who know what photographers are looking for (and knows how to deliver).

Bookings go through Stuart Cove's organization at http://www.stuartcove.com and info@stuartcove.com.

Here are a sample of the kinds of things we photograph in Shark Shootout:

Man Of War Revisited

2011-02-07T07:34:00.000-08:00

The first time I went out to photograph the Man Of War infestation that is presently afflicting South Florida waters it was quite rough. I got some nice photos, but the over/unders in particular were not as controlled as I knew I could do if the seas laid down. So, when the wind dropped to 10-knots my buddy Phil Darche and I set out in his boat to photograph some more Portuguese Man Of War in the shallow water just behind the tower on Molasses Reef.

First were some topside shots of the Man Of Water. I had done traditional ID shots while out the day before, so here I played with light and reflections to get a different view. A wary loggerhead who came by to munch down a few Man Of War was a not-so-willing subject.

Then came the over/unders. I tried some polecam shots, thinking to stay away from the highly venomous tentacles but the boat and the jellyfish floated at significantly different rates, making every flyby very brief and frustrating. Plus, I couldn't keep the dome free of water spots and I couldn't shift the zone of autofocus in the housing as necessary to get either the topside or underwater part of the animal in critically sharp focus. Plus, I could only do either vertical or horizontal for each series, no ability to shift on the fly. For all these reasons I decided to shoot from in the water, on snorkel, with a 14mm II lens on a Canon MKIV, SEACAM housing with Superdome and S45 viewfinder.

All went well while I was using the housing blindly, just pointing in the direction of the Man Of War. But, I wanted the greater precision of using the viewfinder. I figured the "tunnel vision" of looking through the groundglass would increase the hazard of accidentally getting stung, but hey, how bad could it be?

I soon found out when the sharp and unmistakable pain of the sting simultaneously struck me on both ankles and left hand. I was wearing a brand new Oceanic LavaCore, so nothing stung me through the wetsuit, but it nevertheless found the exposed skin areas and struck. I had gloves and booties too, but stupidly I had left those at home. Note to self, next time I go to photograph Man of War, take all the protection possible ... including hood, booties, and gloves. Sigh ...

I was very surprised at the intensity of the pain, but more surprised at how tenaciously I was enveloped! The tentacles wrapped totally around my ankles and hand, so much so I had to actually swim back to the boat trailing the Man Of War. Climbing up the ladder was a "pain", as was extricating all the tentacles. They were very difficult to unwrap, stinging all the while. Even places on fins or ladder with bits of tentacle remaining would sting exposed flesh on contact.

We didn't have any vinegar or other anti-sting potions on board (although he does have now, seeing what we went through) so we just went back to the dock for the first aid. Vinegar was massively helpful, and while it smarted for a while it wasn't too bad for me. Some apparently are far more impacted by Man Of War stings, and I'm sure it matters where on the body one is stung. Interesting experience though, as they are clearly very efficient predators who are making their presence known on South Florida beaches and dive sites over these past few weeks.

For more on local impact in South Florida see:
http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local-beat/Man-of-War-Sting-Hundreds-Pile-Up-on-Beaches-115422344.html

Man-O-War Invade South Florida

2011-02-05T08:43:00.001-08:00

I'd been hearing stories about local dive boats in Key Largo that couldn't even get their divers in the water for all the Man O War jellyfish that were being blown in from the Gulfstream these past few days. In fact, local newspapers report the same thing, a 200 mile stretch of ocean from north of Palm Beach to the Florida Keys, so the population of them there at the moment is beyond comprehension.

It was a very bumpy 3-foot chop the day we went out to shoot the Man O War, and there were too many of them to consider doing it from in the water. So, I shot from the surface with a 1DsMKIII and 70-200 zoom, and then used my Seacam polecam with a Canon MKIV and 15mm fisheye (with Superdome) for the underwater shots.

Actually, it was a very difficult shoot. Slam-dunk in clam seas, but very challenging in the wind and the crop. But, I guess without the wind (and therefore chop) the jellyfish wouldn't be here.

Alert Diver, Winter 2011, on press at Quad Graphics

2011-01-31T06:23:00.000-08:00

Last week I was in Sussex, Wisconsin for the press check of our first quarter, 2011 issue of Alert Diver. While I've been involved as a contributing photographer to dive publications for 30 years, it is only since I started as publisher of Alert Diver for the Divers Alert Network that I became involved with design, prepress, and ultimately the on-press process necessary to produce a magazine. To my surprise, I love the press runs, not because I'm a mascochist and like sleep deprivation in the frigid Midwest in the heart of winter. But to get the precise color fidelity the high quality photos that we run in Alert Diver deserve; it is necessary to be on press, as the magazine is printed, in a color-corrected viewing booth on the floor looking at pages with a talented printing professional who can translate subjective color tweaks to the physical realities high speed web press.

We now print Alert Diver at Quad Graphics, in a beautifully modern plant more than 1.7 million square feet under roof. The bindery is here as well, and then the magazines get shipped to another Quad facility for mailing. The infrastructure is quite impressive, but what pleases me the most is the expertise and eagerness to achieve printing perfection that we receive from the pressmen. This plant runs 24/7, so in the course of printing a 100-page magazine we'll meet people from every shift, and I can honestly say it didn't matter whether the magazine is running day or night, there was always a crew in place to listen to our concerns and make the correction to assure each page was the best it could be. Here's a quick backstage of the print experience.

We arrived at Quad Graphics on a gray and snowy day in January for this press run. Luckily, the -12 degree weather they had the week before missed us, and we had a balmy 20 degrees.

Brian Harper, our Medical Editor, was on hand to help out on this press run. As it was his first time on press the Quad staff showed him around the facility. That bottom shot is not any press we would use today, but memorabilia from the Quadracci family that founded Quad press and built an impressive printing empire. See http://www.qg.com/aboutus/qg_story/timeline.asp for a bit of their history.

Maura Dunphy, our sales rep, joined us for a tour around the plant. It is all about ink and paper, and the big machines that put one on the other. In a plant like Quad there are many magazines being run simultaneously. Vogue was there when we were there, but even so, I didn't feel obliged to dress up for those 3:00 AM press calls!

Here are some miscellaneous shots of various pieces of the production process. The cover is by David Doubilet, an over/under of lemon sharks at Tiger Beach in the Bahamas. This issue of Alert Diver should begin arriving member mailboxes the first week of February.

Manatees at Three Sisters

2011-01-23T08:20:00.000-08:00

I just spent a couple of days in Crystal River, Florida photographing manatees. Most of the photo opportunities were at Three Sisters Spring as the water clarity in other areas where the manatees congregate was marginal (or less). Yet, even though the water from the springs was clear inside Three Sisters, there were a LOT of manatees in residence, and it doesn't take much swimming by either manatees or snorkelers to degrade the visibility quickly. Obviously with creatures this large, and challenging water clarity, wide angle lenses were called for.

Paul Nicklen joined me for this adventure. He was scheduled to be in Tampa doing a lecture series for National Geographic and was able to take a few days for a combination recreational shoot/scouting mission. This was our first opportunity shooting together; and fun to share tips, passions, and war stories (although his war stories were better than mine).

Thanks to KC and Mary Beth for their outstanding hospitality and local knowledge!

Orange Bowl Swim Classic_2011

2011-01-05T06:21:00.000-08:00

On January 4th our local pool hosted the 8th annual Orange Bowl Classic swim meet. This is the 8th time I've photographed the event, and the challenge is always how to get quality coverage that our PR guru, Andy Newman, can use to get the story out on the wire services yet do it differently than I've done in the past.

This year automatically presented some new opportunities because it ran in the afternoon, whereas I had always shot it in morning light previously. That changed which side of the pool I shot from and therefore the backgrounds were different.

From a technical challenge POV, our water clarity is normally stunning at the Jacobs Aquatic Center pool, but bring a couple hundred collegiate swimmers from the Midwest and the Northeast to the Keys in December and you can bet sunblock will be part of their pre-swim protocols. Of course, they slather it on just before jumping in, which is silly anyway, but the filters can't keep up and the water clarity suffers. Therefore, the shots that worked best are those with a very wide lens from very close. Doing so during a competition is difficult, but gratefully the coaches understand that I know enough to keep out of the way (barely).

Kittiwake to sink off Grand Cayman January 5th

2011-01-03T19:51:00.000-08:00

Dateline, January 3, 2011, Grand Cayman - Media Day photos courtesy Lorna Whitfield

On December 25th, 2010 all who love diving the Cayman Islands got a serious Christmas present when the 251-foot Submarine Rescue Vessel Kittiwake was towed into the protected waters off Grand Cayman’s Seven Mile Beach. Last minute preparations are underway for her to be sunk on Wednesday, January 5th at a designated site off the western shore of Grand Cayman.

I was hoping to be there to see the festivities in person, but other deadlines interfered. Gratefully, Lorna Whitfield, a talented photo pro and resident of Grand Cayman, agreed to cover the event for Alert Diver and sent me the photos below.

Seven years in the making, the Kittiwake is a project of the Ministry and Department of Tourism in partnership with the Cayman Islands Tourism Association (CITA). CITA provided financial and project management support and will be managing the Kittiwake's dive site, once the vessel is sunk. A broad cross-section of CITA's membership has provided varying levels of sponsorship for the project. The Divers Alert Network is likewise a proud sponsor of the Kittiwake project.

The 5-deck, 2200-ton Kittiwake was originally commissioned as a Chanticleer-class submarine rescue ship in the United States Navy in 1945 during World War II. After 50 years of service the Kittiwake was decommissioned in 1994.

USS Kittiwake (ASR-13) Submarine Rescue Vessel:
Launched 1945
Decommissioned 1994
Length 251 feet
Speed 16 knots

To follow the progress of the Kittiwake sinking stay tuned via the official website at http://www.kittiwakecayman.com.

To see photos of the Kittiwake being cleaned at the shipyard in Virginia, see http://stephenfrink.blogspot.com/2010/05/kittiwake-grand-caymans-newest.html

Pennekamp's 50th Anniversary Promotion

2010-11-24T20:09:00.000-08:00

I was recently contacted by Andy Newman of Newman PR to shoot an illustration of a snorkeler reaching out the the Christ of the Abyss Statue in my home town of Key Largo, Florida. It was to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park this December. The Statue is iconic of Pennekamp, and we wanted to show it as a warm water destination, hence the girl in the bathing suit.

Actually, the shot was comped as a replication of one of my stock shots, a photo I'd taken of my daughter, Alexa, snorkeling around the Statue last summer. However, the shot Andy liked best was a horizontal, and we needed a vertical for the combination of rack brochure, poster, and cover of the Keys Traveler magazine that Newman PR also publishes.

In our hour at the Statue we shot models Corky Wagner and Katy Weiland individually and as couples around the Statue. Their only direction was to reach out to the Statue, but don't actually touch it. Touching coral, or in this case the brass of the Statue, is discouraged, ecologically, so we wanted the impression of connection without the actual physicality. http://tinyurl.com/statue-video

Leaving room for type was also encouraged, as can be seen here in the final execution.
Thanks Andy ... nicely done.

SEACAM and Canon Do DEMA 2010

2010-11-23T09:47:00.000-08:00

The DEMA (Dive Equipment Manufacturer's Association)trade show in Las Vegas was very productive this year. We premiered the new Alert Diver, Quarter 4 - 2010, to rave reviews, and had fantastic reception to various DAN initiatives and seminars presented throughout the show.

In addition, I was there wearing my hat as SEACAM distributor. I import these beautiful housings for the North and South American market, and I was joined on location by designer/manufacturer Harald Hordosch (from Austria) and my SEACAM sales manager, Liz Johnson and Scott Rodman.

SEACAM and Canon were exhibiting side-by-side again this year. As a Canon Explorer of Light, I am proud to be associated with the Canon camera line, and enjoyed the proximity so I could answer some of the technical or creative questions that emerged relative to shooting Canon products.

While no specifically new SEACAM products were introduced at this year’s DEMA, there are some innovative new offerings to be released in the very near future. At the show housings on display for Nikon included the D300 and D3s, and also for the popular Canon 5DMKII. In addition, other SEACAM products displayed included the remote monitor and polecam units, a minifisheye dome port, an underwater tripod, and of course the magnified S180 and S45 viewfinders. The Seaflash 150 garnered a lot of attention from booth visitors, not only for its TTL functionality with both Nikon and Canon, but also for its rear-curtain synch possibilities with both camera brands as well. The beam coverage from the Seaflash 150 is both very wide and even, with a native color temperature that makes it my personal favorite for wide angle photography.

At the Canon booth there was considerable interest in the new 8-15mm fisheye lens. Included here are photos shot on a 1.3 cropped sensor Canon 1DMKIV from the same vantage point at both 8mm and 15mm zoom range. (The lens renders a full circular image with full frame Canon cameras like the 5DMKII and 1DsMKIII) Other popular products were the new Canon G12, 7D, 70-200mm II lens, and of course the extraordinary Canon 5DMKII that has defined the new category of still and video convergence. Canon staff, including David Carlson, Chuckie Luzier, Ed Meyers, and Jim Rose were on hand to answer all technical questions; while a Canon printer churned out prints of my photos, given away free of charge as DEMA souvenirs.

8-15mm @ 15mm on Canon MKIV

8-15mm @ 8mm on Canon MKIV

Additionally, I gave a seminar in the Photo Resource Center on wide angle photography. As always, the SEACAM booth was a focal point for SEACAM shooters to get together and meet with Mr. Hordosch and share stories of their favorite UW imaging tools. Here Wyland, Stephen Frink, and David Doubilet pose in front of the SEACAM booth display.

PhotoPlus Expo in NY for Canon

2010-10-31T12:57:00.000-07:00

I just came home from a very quick trip to Manhattan, speaking at the PhotoPlus Expo at the Javits Center by invitation of my friends at Canon. Here are a couple of shots of the venue on the floor where I spoke to the topic of, no surprise, underwater photography. This is not me speaking though ... I didn't get that shot.

After the show I had a few hours to wander around the Times Square part of town, and since I had my Canon 1DMKIV with me to demo in my SEACAM housing at the show, this was a perfect opportunity to shoot some night images of the Bright Lights/Big City. These are just grab shots, no tripod, but the performance of this camera at ISO 1,000 is scary good. See the Actual Pixels detail of one of my shots, hand-held at 1/30th second. You probably can't tell much from a blog-size photo, but on a good monitor the absence of noise is amazing.

Here are a few other shots from Broadway. Great city, and a nice change of pace from the tropical destinations I normally visit.

SUBGEAR catalog shoot, Key Largo

2010-10-27T07:33:00.000-07:00

I love do commercial photo projects in my hometown of Key Largo, so was very happy when my friends at SUBGEAR suggested we shoot their catalog here over a long weekend in October. Unfortunately, when the winds blow there is no place to hide here, and blow they did, more than 20-knots on Saturday.

But, fortunately we had a good boat (thanks to friend Bob Coakley), gracious and willing models, and a passionate team of creatives ... so we persevered. Actually, we had a fair bit of topside to shoot for this catalog, mostly fashion shots showing SUBGEAR in use, so our in-water time was going to limited anyway. We dived the Aquarius Habitat, Molasses, and then another day headed north to dive the Civil War Wreck and the City of Washington. All great backgrounds for product shots with divers.

I wish we would have had the 100-foot vis we had on many days during my photo courses last summer, but the critters and elements of composition here made it a very productive three days. Here are some sample shots.

Christ of the Abyss Statue_video

2010-09-12T19:39:00.000-07:00

I was shooting a series of stills this week for a magazine cover, promoting the Florida Keys, but it also seemed a likely set-up for video mode on my Canon 5D MKII. Models Cody Wagner and Katie Wieland were snorkeling for the project, and by getting there very early in the morning we had the rare good luck of having the Christ of the Abyss Statue all to ourselves.

By 10:00 in the morning there was a snorkel boat with 34 passengers about to descend on us, but for a while this morning, something as familiar as the Statue was a very special place to be.

Of course, my real job was to shoot stills for the cover of "Keys Traveler", an annual publication for the Monroe County Tourist Development Council through Newman PR. Here are a few samples of the still objectives.

African Safari - Zambia and Botswana

2010-08-15T06:25:00.001-07:00

I've recently come home from an extraordinarily productive photo tour, on safari in southern Africa, Zambia and Botswana specifically. Organized by our friends at Explore Africa, http://www.exploreafrica.net/, this tour began at Lion Camp in Zambia, and then went on to Selinda and Jao camps in Botswana.

Here is a brief photo diary of the trip and its many, many highlights:

Our first camp was Lion Camp in Zambia. We specifically chose that because the game viewing is so very good there. Elizabeth at Explore suggested it, knowing that we would likely get enough stellar images the first few days that part of our photo imperative might be satisfied. She was so right! The first night we witnessed a leopard killing an impala. Good for us and our photo-ops. Not so great for the impala. Of course, that was on top of all the other general game (in the bush and along the rivers) we shot during the day.

The second night we witnessed another leopard kill, and the third night a lion kill. This kind of trifecta of predation I've never seen anywhere else on safari, and this was the 8th safari we've conducted in both southern Africa and East Africa.

Leaving Lion Camp and Zambia we flew into Botswana, cleared customs and then were flown via private aircraft to Selinda Camp, a private game reserve and lodge owned and operated by renown wildlife photography and cinema team, Beverly and Dereck Joubert. We'd met on safari three years previously, when I was leading a tour to Mombo Camp in Botswana and the Jouberts had just to shoot some stock footage. Coincidentally, the same day we'd earlier seen a beautiful scenario of a young leopard cub and mother in a nearby den. Dereck began filming this cub as it grew, for over three years actually, an experience which eventually evolved into a film, Eye of the Leopard, for National Geographic.

from our 2007 visit to Mombo

I've always been impressed with the Joubert's visions of Africa, so intimate and respectful of the wildlife, and I figured if they felt the game opportunities were motivation to run a camp here, I would confidently follow their lead. Selinda did not disappoint!

A brief tip of the hat to Explore again for the air arrangements. We had private aircraft for our group of 19 at each camp, and they operated on time with the utmost courtesy and professionalism. When you are far away and in remote locations, that is great comfort.

Selinda offered the opportunity for game viewing from vehicles or boats, and because there is so much water in the Delta where they operate, Derek has chosen vehicles equipped with snorkels so they operate in water deeper than the floorboards. From hippos in the river to lions prowling the high grasses, this was an very productive camp, that operates at the highest level of service.

The highlight of our Selinda experience was watching a pride of lions with their young leaving for a night's hunt. We photographed them in the gorgeous late afternoon light and into the dark as the searched for game, and eventually rendezvoused with the dominant male lion.

Like Selinda, Jao Camp is one of the premier safari properties operated by Wilderness Safaris. I've come to expect nothing but the best from a Wilderness Safaris property, and since Jao offered both excellent game viewing and an upscale spa ambiance, this is where we chose as our final camp.

This was a year of exceptional rain in the Okavango Delta, not while we were there, as is was beautifully sunny the whole time. But earlier in the year they had their most rain in several decades, and it meant that some of the roads near camp that might normally offer game viewing were underwater. However, the best game opportunities are but a 45-minute boat ride away anyway, at Hunda Island. Here we saw vast plains of grasses with elephants, giraffe, zebra, and of course the cats, both leopard and lion.

Being a Delta camp, Jao delivers the water activities quite well, including stable boats large enough for 8-10 photographers, and less stable but more intimate merkoros (like narrow dug-out canoes, but made of fiberglass these days) to offer a water-level view of the the vegetation of the Okavango.

Thanks to Explore and Lion Camp, Selinda, and Jao. This was the greatest safari experience yet, and we look forward now to the next one, hopefully soon!

To see the amazing images our 17-year old daughter Alexa took on this same safari, please visit my earlier blog post from July, here at http://stephenfrink.blogspot.com/2010/07/alexa-shoots-africa.html. It is easier to simply scroll up to the "July" tab on this page, and click on "Alexa Shoots Africa". Yeah, I know, she kicked my butt. I'd say "beginner's luck" but she had a terrific shoot on our last safari too. She has a great eye for composition, very instinctive.

Neosport ad

2010-08-15T05:16:00.000-07:00

Last summer I had an assignment to shoot a photo for Neosport wetsuits, an image to be used in an upcoming ad campaign. The timing was coincident with one of my Digital Master classes in Key Largo, and since one of the topics for discussion was working with models, I had my friend Cody Wagner and his girlfriend Katie Wieland come out with our class aboard Ocean Diver's Santana for a photo session on the City of Washington shipwreck.

I shot Cody and Kate at a photogenic bit of wreckage, while Gary Yoss (a student in that class) took some photos of me. Actually, I didn't even know Gary was shooting while we worked, so it was a pleasant surprise when Gary came back to this year's Digital Master class and brought the photos he'd taken a year previously.

The Neosport ad will run in the next issue of Alert Diver, and I've just now come back from the Clarksville, TN Quad Graphics plant after a 60-hour press-check on our magazine (I'm the publisher of Alert Diver).

I thought it an odd coincidence that the ad and the Behind the Scenes shot of the ad being photographed would all show up essentially the same week, a year after I clicked the shutter release.

Thanks to Gary Yoss for the UW shot of me at the City of Washington, and to Peter Winkler for the shot of the ad being proofed in the viewing booth on press.

Digital Masters course, Key Largo, August 2010

2010-08-08T15:04:00.000-07:00

Last week we hosted a group of dedicated and talented underwater photographers, participating in my Digital Masters course in the Florida Keys.

I only do two of these courses each year, in the summer, in Key Largo, at a time calculated to offer the highest probability of stellar sea conditions. This year we hit it perfectly in both June and August, enjoying slick calm seas most days, and extraordinary marine life encounters. There's a lot of good diving in the world, but I can't think of anywhere else on the planet I'd rather go to teach photography than Key Largo in the summer. It is that good, and that easy for travel.

As always, our friends from Ocean Divers provided the diving services. Photoshop guru Eddie Tapp was on hand to introduce new techniques in Photoshop CS5 particularly well suited to our challenges in underwater imaging.

Here below are some of the images I shot during the week. We have now announced the schedule for next year as well, at http://www.waterhousetours.com/instruction.

Russell James for Rolex

2010-07-21T06:37:00.000-07:00

One of the most creative and charismatic photographers I've ever worked with is a fashion shooter named Russell James. http://www.studiorusselljames.com/

He does a lot of work for Victoria's Secret and many other very high profile clients, including Rolex. Every now and then we get a chance to work together, when a project is particularly involved with shallow water or splash environments, either in pools or in the ocean. I am always in awe of his considerable technical proficiency in these situations, but truthfully most impressed with his genuine affinity and friendship with the supermodels he works with. They like him, want to do good work with him, and in the end they look spectacular and the client is well served.

A few years ago we did a project for Rolex, in New Providence. Our mutual friend Stuart Cove provided all the in-water support, and we based the production at Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island. Russell flew a different supermodel in for each of 7 consecutive days and they would be photographed in a studio contrived in a ballroom at the hotel, and also shot in a pool or in the ocean (if their water skills allowed them to be safe in an ocean environment). I was there to shoot backgrounds in the ocean, which which the studio shots would then be composited.

Some of the open water shots of the girls, all wearing their Rolexes of course, worked. But, in my opinion the strongest shots, and the ones chosen to lead the campaign, were the studio shots Russell took of the girls in flowing gowns, with a wind machine ruffling the hair, and the light on the Rolex watch beautifully crafted. My underwater backgrounds were compositional elements, combined in Photoshop.

The results ran on the Rolex website and a huge print campaign in French Vogue.

Here's some Behind The Scenes shots:

Cool Tool - HDR in Photoshop CS5

2010-07-13T17:45:00.000-07:00

We spent a few days in London on our way to safari in Zambia and Botswana over the past few weeks, and I did the totally tourist things ... rode the double-decker bus, went to London Tower, walked around Piccadilly, etc. Actually, it is a great city, and a lot of fun to be photographing something other than fish and divers.

Mostly I walked around with my Canon G11 and took snapshots of the landmarks and my family. But, at least one night I went out semi-seriously to shoot nightscapes (these with my Canon 5DMKII), in particular the Parliment buildings and Big Ben over the Thames. The issue was to try to hold detail in the bright areas (like the clock tower) and also by able to bring out the darker areas like the reflections in the water. It seemed a natural candidate for the high dynamic range tool in the new Adobe Photoshop CS5.

The short story on HDR is that it combines a number of exposures, automatically in software, to extract the best of the highlights and shadows and composite in a single image.

Here are the four exposures I used to make the HDR image, each a full stop apart in terms of shutter speed:

Here is the image that Photoshop CS5 created for me:

Very impressive new technology, and this tool plus the content aware functionality are reason enough to upgrade to CS5.

Alexa Shoots Africa

2010-07-12T17:50:00.000-07:00

I just got home from a terrific photo tour in Zambia and Africa. My wife, Barbara, organized the trip for a group of friends based at three lovely lodges: Lion Camp, Selinda Camp, and Jao Camp.

Our 17-year old daughter Alexa did really well with her photography on this trip, shooting both a Canon G11 and a Canon 1DsMKIII with 100-400mm zoom lens. The images in the portfolio above are all hers.

She even managed to get a shot of her Dad at work.

Special thanks to our African travel specialists, Explore, http://www.exploreafrica.net/

Digital Master Class in Key Largo

2010-06-19T08:39:00.000-07:00

I just wrapped teaching a really productive Digital Master seminar in Key Largo. We had slick calm seas for 6 days, and a really engaged, talented, and interesting group of students to make it all the more fun. Eddie Tappp was on hand to teach us all the new functionalities of Adobe CS5 and I got to experiment with Lightroom 3.0 as well.

The most exciting part for me was the quality of diving. Especially, since I was wondering if we were going to get this week of diving in at all, given the dire predictions of an ecological calamity befalling the Florida Keys from the Deep Water Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Not to minimize the horrible situation in the Gulf of Mexico right now, but the mass of the Florida Peninsula and favorable currents have kept the spill completely away from our waters. Totally. In fact, we just received this very reassuring advisory from NOAA on June 23rd:

The offshore trajectory maps (previously showing oil interacting with the Loop Current) have been temporarily suspended because the northern end of the Loop Current has been pinched off into a large eddy (Eddy Franklin) so there is no clear path for oil to enter the Loop Current from the source. Also, there have been no reports of recoverable oil in the Loop Current or Eddy Franklin and the oil has moved to the North and away from the Eddy Franklin. We will continue to monitor the area with overflights, vessel observations, and satellite analysis. When the threat of shoreline impacts to the Florida Keys increases, we will resume producing the offshore trajectory maps.

On June 21st, NOAA offered the further advisory "Surface and aerial monitoring of waters off the west coast of Florida, south of the panhandle and the Florida Keys, continues to show the risk remains low for near-term Transocean/BP oil spill pollution threats to the Florida Keys, officials at the Florida Peninsula Command Center said Thursday. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration oil spill trajectory maps produced for Friday, June 18, continue to show light sheen and tar balls positioned away from the Keys. According to the Saturday forecast, the closest patch is to be about 170 miles west of Key West. The forecast also states “satellite imagery analysis no longer shows the persistent patches of sheen to the south, southeast of the main slick.”

While no one has a crystal ball to predict the long term effects of near-shore habitats and marine life lost in the Gulf of Mexico, or the effects of chemical dispersing agents being injected into the oil plume; my reality the first week of June, diving throughout the Florida Keys presented an environment of coral reefs and shipwrecks totally unaffected by the disaster in the Gulf.

If there is any good news anywhere in all of this, it is that one of this nation's greatest treasures, the coral reefs of the Florida Keys, is alive and well.

As for photo instruction in Key Largo, dates are now announced for our 2011 Seminar Season:

June 4 - 11, 2011 for Digital Master Class (Advanced)
July 30 - August 6 for Digital Immersion Class (Advanced Intermediate)

Here are a few memories of last week.

Oceanic Armegeddon

2010-06-14T16:30:00.000-07:00

The cover of this week's Newsweek magazine is one of my shots, a loggerhead turtle shot off Molasses Reef in Key Largo. This is one stock photo I never wished to sell for this kind of a story: "What the Spill Will Kill". I've heard that nearly 500 turtles have already been killed in the Gulf of Mexico. The count of marine mortality will be coming for months and years from now. Whether the bluefin tuna spawn, or the dolphins, or the whales sharks, or simply the seafloor critters that are less "marquee" but no less critical.

This is a disaster of Biblical proportions.

Frink MFT Photo Tour aboard Paradise Dancer

2010-05-30T15:09:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be writing about this trip in the next issue of Alert Diver (Quarter #3, 2010) so I have to hold back my favorite shots from posting here. But, as a shout-out to an excellent boat and stellar crew, I wanted to give a visual salute to the photo-ops they provided a couple of weeks ago, off North Sulawesi, Indonesia.

Kittiwake - Grand Cayman's Newest Shipwreck - Soon Come

2010-05-25T11:57:00.000-07:00

My good friend Bill Harrigan just went to visit the KITTIWAKE while she was being cleaned and prepared for sinking in a shipyard in Virginia. Bill is an old hand at seeing military vessels being prepared to sink as artificial reefs as he was the Key Largo National Marine Sanctuary Manager when the USCGC BIBB and DUANE were sunk, and he went to the James River Fleet and personally hand-picked the SPIEGEL GROVE as the first step in acquiring the vessel for the Key Largo dive community. Below are his thoughts relative to the KITTWAKE project:

Wreck divers get ready, the USS Kittiwake is coming to Cayman!
For more details, see www.kittiwakecayman.com

In a noisy shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia, a small army of workers is cutting, grinding, hauling and cleaning as the ship enters the final weeks of preparation before being towed to Grand Cayman. Tim Mullane and Sean Bowman from American Marine Group showed me the ship recently, and it was apparent this is going to be a great dive for many reasons.

First of all, the site for the sinking is superb – shallow, clear and close to the beach. Second, the ship is an excellent choice – it’s heavily built so it will last underwater and it has lots of structures and compartments. Third, the clean-up has been extremely thorough. According to Tim, the goal is “not even a sheen when she goes down.” Fourth, the preparation for diver access has been equally painstaking. Thousands of brackets have been ground off flush to prevent snagging and huge openings have been cut through the ship to allow complete access fore and aft and from keel to stack. Instead of simply gutting the ship, the interesting items such as engine blocks, winches, boilers, cranes and compressors have been removed, cleaned and re-installed. On the bridge you won’t just find a sanitized compartment, you’ll see the radar housings, the helm and other equipment. Below, you’ll find the recompression chambers – hatches welded open – and vast banks of air tanks.

A lot of people have put a lot of work and poured a lot money into this project, but the result is going to be spectacular!

USS Kittiwake (ASR-13) Submarine Rescue Vessel:
Launched 1945
Decommissioned 1994
Length 251 feet
Speed 16 knots

Bill Harrigan

A tentative sink date for the KITTIWAKE is January 5, 2011.

Uniroyal Tire Ad shoot - Jacobs Aquatic Center

2010-05-24T06:14:00.000-07:00

So, here's the idea. Let's illustrate a guy floating in a Uniroyal tire, just as if it were an inner tube like we used to float on in the lake when we were kids. That's a fun kind of concept that could be used to inspire participation in a tire dealer contest where a prize would be a vacation ... fun in the sun and all. Fair enough, except that tires don't float. They sink. And they especially sink when you put a 180-pound guy inside.

So, that was the logistical challenge when Rachel Rein of Hill Holliday agency in NY called to ask about shooting an over/under photo of a guy floating in a tire. No problem, I figured. We'll put that inner tube inside the tire, just like the old days before tubeless tires, and it will float.

The venue was easy. We have a beautiful swimming pool here in Key Largo, Jacobs Aquatic Center. I swim there for exercise in the morning, and have photographed many competitive swimmers there, including a number of world-class swimmers training for the 2008 Olympics. So, I knew we'd have the pool infrastructure, and Rachel took care of booking the model and stylist. Ashley Ramos, the client from Uniroyal came in from South Carolina, along with ace art director Gray Taylor and account executive Sara Raynor, both from Erwin Penland Agency. We all met one sunny morning at the pool in Key Largo. Here's how it went from there:

Well, the tire floats now. So far so good.

Very unstable once we try to put the model inside. Not so good. Clock is ticking and we don't have a stable platform (tire) for the model to sit in. Thankfully, model Britt Bradford was as good natured as he was photogenic, and he was game to try most anything we had to do to make the concept work.

OK, well if we can't float the tire, how about suspending it? We tied the tire with monofilament line to the 3-meter diving board. After all, how hard can it be to remove a few lines in Photoshop once the shoot is done? Easy for us maybe, but not so comfortable digging into Britt's shoulder's constantly. Oh well, no complaints from him.

Now I was ready to shoot, but the balance was still tricky, so an in-water assist helped to stabilize, and and you can see Gray Taylor, the AD on the shoot is in the water in the pool with the talent, helping the model to stay balanced in the tire, while the swimmer with the kickboard adds some dimension to the over/under water interface, just so it wasn't too flat and "pool-like".

The beauty of digital image capture, in this case with my Canon 1DsMKIII and Seacam housing (with swivel-45 degree viewfinder so I could work from poolside without actually having to be in the water) is that the client can review the shoot instantly. A digital tech would download the images from my card and the art director and client would review right there at the pool. We changed a few things as the shoot progressed, but they were small tweaks rather than seismic concept shifts. Rachel and Gray knew exactly what they were looking for and provided very specific comps, so my job was all the easier given their excellent preparation.

We got the shot easily enough, and plenty of alternates that would have worked as well. But, this dealer contest wasn't about winning a trip to Jacobs Aquatic Center to float in the diving well. We needed some tropical fish to place into the scene via Photoshop composite, to tell more of a adventurous getaway kind of story. No problem there either, because Gray visited my studio a little later that day and we went through my digital archives to find the right ocean and scenery for our Uniroyal composite. This one happened to be French Polynesia. The digital retouching was the brilliant work of www.mindseye-atl.com. Our first collaboration, but hopefully not our last. Very talented shop.

Thanks to Barbara Doernbach for advance logistics, Rachel & Gray for keeping the creative on track on location, the gang at Jacobs Aquatic Center & Uniroyal, digital tech Liz Johnson, and tire wrangler Phil Darche. It was a fun shoot, and a very creative execution by the agency.

Maldives Aboard Ocean Dancer

2010-02-28T13:12:00.000-08:00

I've recently come home from a great live-aboard adventure aboard Ocean Dancer in the Maldives. I won't tell much of the story now, because it will be a feature story in our next issue of Alert Diver. But, David Mesnard and the crew on Ocean Dancer were so outstanding, I had to give them a shout-out here.

While on location I had some new toys to play with. A new Canon 1DMKIV (which fits perfectly in my MKIII housing, especially after I installed the modification claw that allows me to shoot video with the MKIV) and the new minifisheye dome from SEACAM.

The images above give a clue as to the kinds of subjects we saw, but I'll hold the story for another day.

First UW shots with Canon MKIV

2010-01-23T11:06:00.000-08:00

I've been in Cayman this week shooting a catalog for Subgear (a new product line from those who brought us Scubapro). As it was a comercial shoot, I couldn't experiment with new gear too much, but as the first two days of the project were ultra-productive, I felt I could spare some time to try out my new camera on the final shoot day. So, just yesterday I got around to shooting with my Canon MKIV in my Seacam MKIII housing. Prior to that I'd been shooting my 5DMKII.

A few first impressions on MKIV:

1. Holy crap ... AF is so nice. Very fast and accurate, even in low contrast subjects like black wetsuits. Focus acquisition is brilliant. Having shot my 5DII in similar conditions the 2 previous days, the improvement is striking.
2. Studying the files, I very much like what I see. I assume a the full frame sensor will always have resolution advantages over a cropped sensor, all else being equal. The extra real estate on the sensor is meaningful. No surprise there, but the MKIV with it's 1.3 crop fares quite well in comparison.
3. The combination of my 1DsMKIII at full frame and MKIV with cropped sensor and 10 frames per second, in same housing, is very compelling for me.
4. MKIV hits color quite well also. The topside stuff I shot in auto white balance is spot on, no slider controls necessary in Lightroom.
5. The 16-35II isn't as wide as I'd like at the wide end for photographing divers, but becomes a better fish portrait lens at 35mm. I expect I'll use it quite a bit in the Maldives in 2 weeks since I'm not shooting people much.
6. The big advantage is the AF focus. For UW use, it is quite fast and accurate. Can't remember any searching at all, but I only shot wide on this project. Still, I expect it to be stellar with 100mm macro as well.
7. And finally, while I haven't tested extensively, the 14mm II looks like it gains new life with the cropped sensor. Quite impressive. (Superdome and PVL20) The performance of the 14mm II as a wide prime with excellent depth of field, nice corners, and sharp focus is very, very promising. More on that after the Maldives trip.

The few product shots with MKIV are herein sized too small to see meaningful resolution judgment. They are extremely nice files though, very impressive in full res.

Note that the Seacam housing for the MKIII accepts the MKIV, and that should be the same for all existing MKIII housings. Seacam will make a MKIV housing as well, as will many others given the quality of this camera and the higher resolution 1DsMKIV we assume to be coming as well.

The Story Behind the Shot - Tiger Eats Video

2010-01-17T05:55:00.001-08:00

I was off West End Grand Bahama, at Tiger Beach. For three days we’d had nothing but lemon sharks and were starting to despair, for our objective was to photograph a tiger shark. On the afternoon of our final shoot day this big tiger came in, full of attitude. The lemons were very deferential, but the tiger moved slowly, never with any implied threat. But, then he took great interest in our videographer. Maybe it was something about an electrical impulse given off by the camera, or maybe a noise when the tape was running. At any rate, she took several very close passes at the cameraman, and on this one the tiger shark actually opened its mouth, grabbed the video camera and swam away with it.

The shark didn’t eat it, and in fact spat it out a short distance away. But, the tape was running the whole time and gave us some pretty good chuckles back on the boat reviewing that particular footage!

To see the whole episode on YouTube, visit:
http://tinyurl.com/Frink-Tiger

SEACAM on Location - David Ellis Shoots for Medtronic

2010-01-16T19:15:00.000-08:00

This was a big week for our SEACAM rental housings to be out on location. We had rented a housing for a Canon 5DMKII to a Hollywood feature film crew shooting a movie about Navy Seals, actually with Navy Seals. The photo team had to rendezvous with a submarine off Key West. Interestingly, given all to action sequences necessary, the mobility and video image quality of the 5DMKII is sufficient to shoot a feature film. Incredible really.

At the same time, lifestyle shooter David Ellis had booked our SEACAM housing for the Canon 1DsMKIII for an ad campaign he was shooting in a pool in Miami Beach for medical equipment manufacturer Medtronic. David is a very experienced topside shooter, but when the job called for over/unders in the pool, he knew he had to rent the gear and figured he might as well rent some equipment expertise as well. So I went on location with him to make sure everything was set up properly and operating with precision. After all, once the talent and assistants and wardrobe and location are all booked, and the clients and art director flies in from out of town; shoot day is not the time to to suffer any distractions or impediments to success!

David did a great job, and have no doubt this will be a very strong ad campaign. The swivel 45-degree viewfinder allowed him to keep his head out of the water and better communicate with his models, and the variable power and quick recycle of the SEAFLASH 150 made for a very useful fill light as the models were shaded by the scrim.

BTW ... I shot all these production stills with my newest camera, a Canon EOS 1DMKIV. Beautiful camera, with incredible color rendition. This is the first time I never played with the color sliders in Lightroom at all. Normally I make tweaks to every file every time. This was auto-white balance and really pretty amazing. None of these shots are adjusted for color.

I'll have to do a lot more testing with various subjects before the MKIV becomes as second nature as some of my other Canon bodies, but as the ergonomics are so similar to my MKIII bodies, I'm sure the migration will be quick and painless.

Orange Bowl Swim Classic_2010

2010-01-03T08:56:00.000-08:00

January 3 was a very cold day, by Key Largo standards. It was mid-50s but bright sunshine as I photographed another of our annual Orange Bowl swim meets.

Hosted by the Jacobs Aquatic Center, the same pool where I swim for exercise most mornings, the OBSC brought in about a dozen teams, including powerhouse University of Michigan, coached by our friend Mike Bottom.

Andy Newman of Stuart Newman PR was there shooting topside, and both of us were tasked to get some images that Andy would then upload to the Associated Press to get publicity for the event. My personal challenge was to shoot the event differently than I'd done before, without actually interfering with the swimmers as they competed.

Most of the swimming shots done with Canon 1DMKIII, chosen for the 10-frame-per-second motor drive capability. I used my Seacam housing with swivel-45 viewfinder so that I could easily compose the over/unders. Most were shot with Canon 15mm fisheye lens. The motion blurs were with 1DsMKIII for high res.

Inside Disney's The Seas With Nemo and Friends

2009-12-13T19:37:00.001-08:00

I was in Orlando recently to shoot an underwater portrait of Barry Olson, an administrator at the The Seas with Nemo and Friends (formerly the Living Seas aquarium) at Epcot Center. Barry is a strong supporter of the Divers Alert Network, and we are featuring an article about him in the next issue of Alert Diver.

People don't generally realize how very dark it is inside aquariums, when lit only by artificial light. Our eyes adjust better than most light meters and cameras, but, trust me, they are dark. Years ago I had a semi-failed assignment in the Monterrey Aquarium because my backgrounds were so dark. Of course, that was film and my first year as a pro shooter. I would hope I'd learned something by now, at least how to open up a dark background in a wide angle shot.

For this I used a Canon 5DMKII in a Seacam housing, Seaflash 150 with diffuser for foreground light (typically at 8% power. My shutter speed was 1/20th second and typically between F-5.6 and F-8. The ISO was 1,000. I used an Ikelite DS160 with a remote slave sensor for the background light. I hid the strobe behind a rock and snaked the slave sensor around to face my strobe, essentially relaying the light towards the back of the tank.

White sharks - Where they aren't

2009-12-09T09:41:00.000-08:00

I was doing some editing for a feature on great white sharks, to appear in our Quarter #1, 2010 copy of Alert Diver, and while perusing folders of images I found a couple of Photoshop composites of great white shark encounters. I both cases the sharks were there, and they are my shots of the sharks from that particular destination. But they just weren't exactly there at the time! Kind of fun to look at them again.

Diver with shark reflection - Guadalupe, composite created by Daniel Brown
Diver and cage - Guadalupe, composite created by Daniel Brown
Great white shark and polecam - South Australia, composite created by Rick Melvin

A Different Perspective_Humpback

2009-10-24T13:10:00.000-07:00

Earlier this summer I led a photo tour to Tonga to photograph humpback whales. While on location, my good friend Bob Coakley got this shot of me snorkeling with a whale. I thought it was kind of interesting to see my shot, taken at the exact moment Bob got his, kind of a digital "Whisper Down The Wire".

Canon 1DMKIV

2009-10-21T08:08:00.000-07:00

I ordered my new MKIV yesterday, and am convinced it will work in my SEACAM MKIII housing. The combination of 1DsMKIII for high res (until 1DsMKIV is released) and the 1DMKIV for video, high ISO, rapid motor drive, and cropped sensor advantages with telephoto & some wide angle lenses ... all in the same housing ... is very compelling!

Plus, enhanced AF with MKIV is a significant advantage for shooting action, and I have no doubt that the 14-bit files @ 16MB will be very impressive. I expect this to be my go-to camera for many applications.

See http://tinyurl.com/MKIV-Galbraith for size comparisons relative to MKIII and MKIV for housing installations.

Shark bit (a little)

2009-10-17T17:27:00.001-07:00

I was on a shoot in the Bahamas last week, actually two shoots. One was for a catalog for Aqua Lung, and one was to shoot elements for Photoshop composites for a a series of print ads for Atlantis resorts. Brett Ratner was the Director of Photography for that one. You may know his work as Director for X-Men and the Rush Hour movies.

Anyway, one of the shots required sharks, and so we went where the sharks definitely are ... Stuart Cove's Dive Bahamas. We were chumming the sharks to the back of the boat, and the combination of bait in the water and competition for said bait ramped up the action for a while. I had a chainmail sleeve on my left hand, and curiously had a shark bite down on that hand.

I say "curiously" because it is the first time I actually was bitten by a decent sized shark (not counting nurse sharks, of course). What I noticed was:

1. The chainmail doesn't prevent the tooth from penetrating. It keeps the tooth from penetrating DEEP, and lacerating. For that it is ultra effective.
2. Sharks have a fair bit of pressure in their bite.
3. Sharks carry a fair bit of bacteria, for my hand swelled up almost immediately. Nothing a little antibiotic wouldn't cure.

It was pretty much a non-issue in terms of getting hurt, but intellectually interesting in terms of the efficiency of sharks, and how quickly/easily accidents can happen (even if they are kind of wimpy "accidents" to begin with).

I'll post some of the other things we shot on both shoots later in the week.

Frink Photo courses in Key Largo, 2010

2009-10-15T19:29:00.000-07:00

Stephen Frink Digital Master Classes - http://waterhousetours.com/instruction

Digital Master Class 1 - June 12-19, 2010, Digital Master Class 2 - July 31-August 7, 2010

The digital revolution has obviously arrived for underwater imaging. No real surprise there, for the benefits are staggering. The ability to capture more images on a single dive, economy of not requiring film and processing, and the immediacy of review on the camera’s LCD are some of the obvious benefits of digital imaging. There is no reason not to embrace digital imaging, except for the uncertainty of the new paradigm. An immersive week on location with Stephen Frink can show the workflow shortcuts and creative techniques to make you a much more accomplished digital shooter.

These courses are held in Key Largo, Florida. Summer in Key Largo may offer the world’s best underwater classroom, with clear water and massive fish populations within the protected waters of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and the special Sanctuary Preservations Areas (no-take zones) off Key Largo. The course template includes daily two tank dives and classroom sessions. There will be guest lectures by Photoshop guru Eddie Tapp (www.eddietapp.com) as well. This course is optimized for those using digital SLR cameras, and laptop computers optimized for image processing. The course is limited to 14 students to assure personal attention and ample review time for the projected digital images.

Dolphins

2009-09-27T15:09:00.000-07:00

I just had a photo request from a British newspaper content provider for dolphins I've shot over the years. I thought it was a nice collection to view again in this context as well.

These are all from either West End, Grand Bahama; the Dolphin Experience at UNEXSO (Freeport, Grand Bahama); or Anthony's Key Resort, Roatan, Honduras.

Sharks and Dolphins_West End, Grand Bahama

2009-09-09T06:10:00.000-07:00

On the water in the Bahamas in the summertime ... ahhh ... one of my favorite places to be! Last week I had the opportunity to do a 4 day shoot with Stuart Cove off his luxury sportfish yacht, Lyford Lure. A friend of mine and I flew to Freeport, and Stuart and crew met us at West End.

West End is the launch point for the spotted dolphins at White Sand Ridge, Caribbean Reef Sharks at Eldorado, the shallow Sugar Wreck, and of course the lemon and tiger sharks resident at Tiger Beach. The diversity and quality of the photo-ops here is amazing, and being there with friends who share the passion for UW photography makes it all the better.

Key Largo Photo Seminar_August 09

2009-08-16T17:17:00.000-07:00

We just had a terrific week of diving in Key Largo last week, during my annual Digital Immersion photo course. I run these in the summer, here in my home town of Key Largo, and the diving never disappoints. What we have is abundance is ... fish/fish/fish. More than anywhere else I've yet to find in this hemisphere.

Here is a sample of the diversity we saw in our six days of diving. Thanks to Daniel Brown for teaching the Lightroom/Photoshop module, and especially to Ocean Divers for providing such wonderful dive boat ops all week.

All images with Canon 5DMKII and Canon 1DMKIII in Seacam housings.

Whales of Tonga

2009-07-31T18:45:00.000-07:00

I'm just now on my way home from photographing humpback whales in Tonga with one of our photo groups, this time aboard NAI'A. It was a wonderful experience, especially since we actually had whales with us every day. Of course, with wild animal encounters of this nature some days were better than others, mostly as a function of weather variables. But, the good days were very, very good! And the NAI'A was an absolutely stellar platform for interacting with and photographing the humpbacks.

See Lenny Rosen's photo here to see how close the whales came to the NAI'A at times.

We did some scuba diving while there, as you can see from the photos, but clearly the focus was on whales.

BTW ... The shot of the snorkeler swimming towards the whale was my 16-year old daughter Alexa. Here is the shot she got on that pass, with her Canon G9 and Patima housing:

Interesting to note that since I posted her shot I heard from two of my Shooter buddies. David Doubilet told me to go to Cracker Barrel and buy a rocking chair, because my kid kicked my butt shooting humpbacks and I should spend my days a 'rockin. Then Chris Newbert called. Said he had good news and bad news. The good news was that it looked like we had a great humpback trip. The bad news was that my kid kicked my butt shooting humpbacks. With friends like these ... ;)

Tech notes - All of my UW shots were taken with Canon 5DII and Seacam housing, available light. The topside shots were with Canon 1DMKIII, utilizing the 10-frame per second motor drive to capture the peak action on the surface.

Great White Sharks in South Australia

2009-06-29T15:41:00.000-07:00

I spent last week in South Australia, photographing great white sharks with Andrew Fox and crew from Rodney Fox Shark Adventures. We had as many as 9 sharks in a single day, and more importantly, "players" (sharks that come close enough to the dome for effective photography) every day!

The ultra-close bite shots came from my SEACAM polecam system, all the better to keep my fingers intact. The rest were done from a cage at the surface, or their unique subsurface cage which put us on the seafloor in 50 - 80 feet of water watching the sharks in their native habitat.

The reason the sharks come to North Neptune Island is for the colony of New Zealand fur seals who live and birth their pups here. The fact that it is so good for shark photography is a happy coincidence.

Special thanks to Andrew and crew for providing the stellar photo ops! The pictures of me at work were either by Ana Maria Avila (polecam on inflatable) or Ian Lauder (underwater shots of me with housing).

Canon 5D Mark II video, with firmware upgrade

2009-06-17T05:45:00.000-07:00

http://vimeo.com/5194579
Above is a link to the 5D Mark II video I shot last week on Snapper Ledge, specifically to test manual exposure control with the new firmware upgrade. Notice brackets from underexposure to overexposure, on the fly while rolling.

Very powerful technology. I look forward to some video captures next week with great white sharks in South Australia.

Thanks to Frazier Nivens, http://www.oceanimaging.com, for the editing and vimeo upload.

Key Largo Digital Master Class - Some New Images

2009-06-14T15:59:00.000-07:00

Key Largo may offer the greatest UW photo-diversity in this hemisphere. It remains an awesome place for me to teach my photo seminars. This year again with the extraordinary help of Eddie Tapp teaching the Photoshop seminars, Chuckie Luzier from Canon providing helpful technical assistance, and Mike White as an all-around go-to-guy.

It was a wonderful week with an outstanding group of students!

Sigma 8mm lens on Canon 5DII, Seacam housing

2009-06-13T07:06:00.000-07:00

Today we are wrapping up my Digital Master class in Key Largo. Great diving all week and a wonderful bunch of students to dive with. My daughter Alexa even came out on the boat for a few days, and you'll see her in the UW photos posted here.

One of the very nice things about this class is that the diving is so easy, and there are soooo many fish, that it is easy to experiment and still be productive. Earlier in the week I tried out the new Canon 17mm tilt-shift lens, and today I shot some circular fisheyes with the Sigma 8mm.

Of course, for it to be truly circular, it needs to be a full frame digital camera. It was designed for film cameras after all, so a cropped sensor camera doesn't do a good job. But, mounted on my Canon 5DII, it provided an interesting perspective. I had to take the removable sunshades off the Seacam superdome, so the shade would not vignette, but that is a 2 minute fix. Just remove 6 allen screws.

Canon 17mm Tilt-Shift lens Underwater for First Time

2009-06-09T18:15:00.000-07:00

I am teaching a photo course in Key Largo this week, and as we are in the water so much during the seminar, it provides an opportunity for me to try some experimentation. Also, since we are fortunate enough to have Canon technical wizard Chuckie Luzier join us for these courses, I get to play with some very interesting new Canon equipment as well.

Today's project was housing the unique Canon 17mm tilt-shift lens. While underwater was never likely in any engineer's mind in creating this lens (it is primarily for architectural photography) it is a very sharp 17mm prime lens, a focal length very useful for me.

The downside to using it underwater is that it is manual focus only, and because of the tilt and shift controls, adding even a manual focus gear would be tough. But, I guessed at where the focus should be according to the dome's virtual image, and really had very nice performance with the lens. If Seacam ever offers an option to actually focus the lens manually via the housing (the tilt knob will likely be the issue, as that is taller than the position of the focus gear), I'd seriously consider making it a go-to for wide angle work. Not that many would actually buy the lens exclusively to use underwater, but I can see a lot of topside applications for the lens, and if I owned it of course I'd want to use it underwater too. It truly is a beautiful piece of glass!

Intuitively, I tried the Seacam superdome, a 9" mineral glass wide angle port, in conjunction with a 35mm port extension, which actually worked out quite well for subjects 2 feet to infinity.

Vandenberg - First dive!

2009-05-29T16:06:00.000-07:00

Dateline, Key West, May 29, 2009 - The USS General Hoyt S. Vandenberg has now become an extraordinary wreck dive. Located 6 miles offshore of Key West, this 523-foot former missile tracker is so massive it will take several dives to even get a sense of it all. Today, in one 35-minute dive I never had to go below 82-feet and found plenty of very interesting photo-ops. Obviously, she will gain more colorful encrustation and marine life aggregation each day she spends on the bottom. It will be interesting to replicate these same photos in a couple of years, just to see h ow quickly the sponge and coral colonizes the ship.

Thanks to dive model Jaclyn Skafas and my good friends at Dive Key West for providing access to this morning's Vandenberg dive.

Vandenberg sinks today!

2009-05-27T10:49:00.000-07:00

It took 12 years to get her on location off Key West, and a less than 2 minutes to put her on the bottom. Congratulations Key West! Very nicely done.

Key West bound: On my way to Vandenberg sinking

2009-05-26T20:19:00.000-07:00

Hit the afternoon light over Bahia Honda Bridge and found a cooperative key deer on Big Pine Key. Then to Mallory Square and the eccentricity that is Old Town, Key West.

Tomorrow they sink the ship.

Kiteboarding, My first attempts (at shooting, not doing)

2009-05-16T07:35:00.000-07:00

One of my daughter's friends, Tom Fields, is a champion kiteboarder. When I learned what he does, and how well he does it, I suggested we meet one afternoon so I could try some kiteboarding photos.

We rendezvoused at Anne's Beach, on the oceanside off Islamorada. I went out to a shallow sandbar just offshore and stood in waist-deep water as Tom and his sister Jamie ran kideboard passes in my proximity.

I had three cameras working that day. My Canon 1DsMKIII in a Secam housing with swivel-45 viewfinder for ultra-high-res water level and over/under shots, a 1DMKIII for 10 frames per second motordrive capability, and a Canon 5DII for its color rendition and HD movie capability. Lenses ranged from 14mmII in housing, to 16-35II, 24-70, and 70-200 on the topside cameras.

While I'd never shot kiteboarding before, it was quite interesting, and challenging. Next time we'll run the passes to the over/unders a little closer, or maybe go to my 16-35 lens so I can zoom to the action. Also, I'd like to try some slow shutter speed pans next time. Maybe even try it offshore wo we can get in some blue water. But, all in all, fun stuff to shoot and DEFINITELY inspires respect in the skill and athleticism of those who do it well, like Jamie and Tom Fields.

Oh yeah, as for the video. As always it seems I was too busy with the stills to shoot much 5DII video, but here's one clip that worked for me, although Tom didn't like the landing. Needed more wind for that particular stunt.

Not that I shoot much video with my 5DII, it is very cool that it can be done when the subject suggests motion.

My new website is "Site of the Week"

2009-05-11T09:31:00.000-07:00

Actually, quite an accolade given the number of websites produced by Livebooks.com, and the talent of the photographers they attract.

tinyurl.com/livebooks for more info.

On further inspection

2009-05-10T08:48:00.000-07:00

The last time I was in Socorro was 2005, and that was to take a rebreather course on Inspiration and Evolution rebreathers. Mike Folwer of Silent Diving was there and I got a nice series of him on his rebreather in a close encounter with a manta. One of the shot is in exclusive distribution with one of my stock agents, and can't go on a web site without fairly significant fees being assessed. That's not what he (or I) had in mind.

So, when Mike asked for a shot for his web site, I knew this one was not available. Which in turn forced me to go back to an archive I hadn't looked at for at least a year. Good thing too, because I found a couple of shots I like, that were invisible to me after I picked the one "favorite" from the series.

Nice to see alternates from that trip once again, and to view a shoot from a new perspective now and then.

Vandenberg_More

2009-05-08T05:56:00.000-07:00

They recently had a media day, and I was invited to walk around the Vandenberg as it is being prepared to sink off Key West, sometime late May.

These are some random shots of the vessel. Exciting potential with such interesting structure on the upper decks. Lots of fish habitat and wide angle photo opportunities in reasonable depths, assuming upright sinking, knock on wood.

Clyde Butcher and me

2009-05-02T09:54:00.001-07:00

Here is a shot of photographer Clyde Butcher and me. Guess which is which.

Clyde was in Key West for an exhibit of his extraordinary black-and-white large format photos of South Florida's remote wetlands as a benefit for Sanctuary Friends Foundation of the Florida Keys: http://sanctuaryfriends.org/. (I am on the Board of Directors of SFFFK)

A new ad with one of my swimming shots

2009-05-02T08:48:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, competitive swimming might have been the most important thing in my life. I swam for 13-years, and even went to college on a swimming scholarship. OK, I admit is was a small college and a small scholarship, but I was very passionate about the sport.

These days I still swim, in the ocean with scuba gear obviously, but also in the mornings when I'm home in Key Largo, with a group of friends in a Master's swim program. I've also taken an interest in the art of swimming, finding new ways to photograph elite swimmers, some of which can be seen on my portfolio site at www.stephenfrinkphoto.com, direct link http://tinyurl.com/cr88wx.

The ad above is for our local pool, Jacobs Aquatic Center. The photo below is from that site as well, and shows Milorad Cavic, the swimmer that so nearly beat Michael Phelps in the 100-meter butterfly at last summer's Olympics in an ad shoot I did for Swans swim goggles.