This week’s Photo Friday entry: ’Evening’
One thing I don’t get to do as much as I’d like is diving at night. They call them night dives but they are usually very early evening (before dinner)! The time you go in depends on what you are going in to photograph. Some fish, mandarin fish for example, mate at dusk so it’s best to slip into the water just as the sun goes down. In the last 15 minutes of sunlight you get a nice dappled sunlight coming through at the surface. And when it’s full dark all the unusual night time creatures are out & about on the reef doing their thing. Its a bit of a pain trying to hold a torch & a camera so now I attach my torch to my camera rig.
In my experience you are much more likely to see crabs & shrimps out in the evening. You can see free swimming moray eels as they hunt for their supper. Lion fish hover nearby and use your torchlight to help them pick out prey. Some day fish are much easier to approach (because they are asleep) but you have to be considerate and try not to wake them with too much flash. You can see Spanish Dancers and Star gazers and all sorts of weird creatures of the night. Also, depending on where you are, sometimes if you turn off the torch and flap your arms you can see green sparkles of bioluminescent plankton all around you.
If you want to see more of my underwater photos from various places then check out the galleries in my Reef Beasties Gallery.
See all the other photo Friday entries (and submit your own) for ‘Evening’ here.
