Photo of the Week: July 02, 2012

Hi Gang!

What can I say? I am a sucker for cleaning stations. I think a lot of underwater photographers are. This week’s POTW is one of many images in my photographic library that I have created at a cleaning station. In this case a bluestreak cleaner wrasse, Labroides dimidiatus, is providing its services to a bridled monocle bream, Scolopsis bileneatus. I created the image off the island of Sipadan in East Malaysian state of Sabah. Along with the state of Sarawak, this part of Malaysia is sometimes referred to as Malaysian Borneo.

Cleaning stations are relatively easy to find in a lot of locations. The bigger challenge is how to get close to the cleaning activity without disrupting it, I think slow, deliberate movements, neutral buoyancy, and setting up your camera system at a safe distance so that all you have to do is compose your shot and trip the shutter go a long way toward success. Of course, judging exactly how close you can get and exactly where the activity will occur is much easier said than done.

The good news is that if you can’t get into the right position or the activity slows down, if you are patient you are likely to have another chance to get a shot within a few minutes as cleaning activity often occurs on a repeated basis around the same landmarks in a reef community

In this instance I used a 105 mm lens. It is my preferred lens as opposed to a macro lens such as a 60 mm lens because I can work from a little farther away and still fill a pleasing percentage of my frame with my desired subject. Getting close enough with a 60 mm lens is problematic

The challenge with a 105 mm lens, as opposed to a 60 mm lens, is that I often have a more limited depth-of-filed with the 105 even when I am shooting from farther back. Shooting from farther away from my subject means opening up my aperture, which in turn, provides less depth-of-field than I would have if were able to close down my f/stop. The action at cleaning stations often occurs in short bursts. That is when the cleaning activity is good and my subjects are in a good orientation for me to compose a compelling shot. I prefer not to use my strobes on full power because of the longer re-cycle time required by the full power setting. But not using full-power means opening my aperture and losing some depth-of-field. This is just another example the battle of trade-offs we fight in the world of underwater photography. There is no right and wrong. You just make a decision and go with it. Then you beat yourself up for not going down the other road!

It is well documented that cleaners such as this bluestreak wrasse along with many other fishes and shrimps play vitally important roles in some reef communities. In studies in which cleaners have been removed from reefs in controlled situations, many fishes were soon infested with ectoparasites. However, in other studies the removal of cleaners seemed to have little impact.

The bridled monocle bream is also known by a number of other common names including the following: monocle bream, spinecheeks, two-lined monocle bream, two-line monocle bream, thumbprint monocle bream, threadfin bream, whiptail bream, bridled spinecheek, two-line spinecheek, two-spine spinecheek, yellow-finned spinecheek and yellowfin spinecheek. Obviously, this species serves as a good example of why ichthyologists use taxonomic names to avoid confusion

Both the bridled monocle bream and the bluestreak cleaner wrasse are common in reef communities in many parts of the Indo-Pacific.

I hope you enjoy this week’s POTW!

See you next week,

Marty