Brown Comber

(Serranellus hepatus), one small, very curious fish which really wanted to inspect the camera lens!

Some more hopefully interesting info...
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(Serranellus hepatus), one small, very curious fish which really wanted to inspect the camera lens!

Some more hopefully interesting info...

This portrait was made in the Adriatic, beneath the Ugljan Island, and in an early afternoon. My diving buddy and me have just had lunch, and it was kinda boring to just sit there... so we went diving, right under the house. The depths were negligible, mainly between 2 and occasionally 5 meters. So we stayed nearly two hours underwater, moving ever so slowly because we have put the Macro extension tubes to the (NIKONOS III) cameras, intending to collect only photos of tiny themes.

The NIKONOS macro tube has an "U" macro frame made of steel wire fixed at the right focusing distance and when one centers an object within the "U", it also shows what will be photographed. This seems simple enough, except that it takes some patience to enframe anything that can move.

This comber did actually put his head into the wire frame for a second, and I was lucky enough to trigger the shot. But when the strobe fired, he was gone with that incredible fish speed that is always almost uncanny. Still, the photo remained (on Fujichrome Sensia, 100ASA), and it really made my day.

And more than that. This photo won the 1st place in "Golfo Di Trieste" international competition in Underwater Macro Photography. Well, it was some 30 years ago, but anyway, now you know the whole story! :)
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