Photo of the Week: October 04, 2010

Hi Gang!

I just got back from a week at at three of California’s Channel Islands diving with a group of students from the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California. We had a great trip with decent water conditions and spectacular weather. While I didn’t get the opportunity to photograph all of these creatures, we saw harbor seals, California sea lions, a blue shark, pods of common dolphins and Risso’s dolphins, a minke whale, bat rays, leopard sharks, soupfin sharks, angelsharks, horn sharks and more. Not a bad list!

In addition to all of those animals I enjoyed several opportunities to photograph giant kelpfish, Heterostichus rostratus. As their common name suggests, giant kelpfish inhabit kelp forests where they try to hide by mimicking the blades of giant kelp, the species of kelp that is the mainstay of southern California’s kelp forests. These slender-bodied, elongate fish can attain a length of close to two feet. Giant kelpfish vary in color from gold to yellow to green to reddish-brown, and many specimens display a number of silver stripes. The color of an individual giant kelpfish varies significantly with the variation likely depending upon the color and patterns in their immediate surroundings.

There are two giant kelpfish in this week’s POTW. The fish on the top and the fish on the bottom are giant kelpfish. You can see how the species varies in terms of color and pattern. The fish in the middle is a senorita fish, Oxyjulius californica. The senorita is a cleaner, and this one was very busy offering its services to the two giant kelpfish. The giant kelpfish often hang almost motionless in the water column at a slightly downward angle as a way of communicating to a nearby senorita that they would like to be serviced. That is exactly what is happening in this POTW shot with the kelpfish vying to gain the cleaner’s attention and service.

When getting cleaned giant kelpfish can be fairly easy to work with, but in the blink of an eye they can swim a few feet and essentially disappear into the kelp forest as these camouflage artists hide amongst the kelp fronds.

I created this week’s POTW with a Nikon D300 and a 17-to-55 mm zoom lens set at a focal length of 38 mm lens in a Subal housing. I used two Ikelite DS160 strobes to light the shot. I was just over to feet away from the action. With an ISO of 250 and my strobes set slightly lower than half-power, I was able to get a good exposure using an f/stop of f/8. I had my strobes set to a relatively low power so they would re-cycle quickly, meaning I would have a good chance at keeping up with the action and would not be forced to wait on my strobes to re-cycle before I could take another shot.

Giant kelpfish occur in kelp forests as far north as British Columbia and have been encountered as far south as Cabo San Lucas at the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja peninsula. Giant kelpfish prey upon a variety of small mollusks, crustaceans and fishes.

I hope you enjoy this week’s POTW!

See you next week,

Marty