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Today is my first day as a volunteer for the National Aquarium! Holly Bourbon, director of dive programs at the National Aquarium, is hosting me at her house for the next week. We woke up bright and early at 5:15am to leave for the aquarium by 5:45am. Upon arrival, I got my badge that gives me access to staff entrances and stored by dive gear in the dive locker. Holly had a contractor coming to assess a window in one of the habitats, and they did a dive around 7:45am. When I was waiting with the contractor, we established that I go to school in Santa Barbara and he grew up there, small world! We headed to the dolphin enclosure where they were doing their dive and I explored a bit. I then met Jackie, the senior assistant dive safety officer, and she took me through all the safety training for being a volunteer. I even learned how to use the compressor that they have and filled tanks. Then, Holly and I got suited up and headed to the Atlantic Coral Reef Habitat to do a checkout dive. I went over all the skills I learned in my open water course, and we did a couple laps in the habitat. It was so cool to be in the tank while the aquarium was open. I got to wave at little kids and Jackie took our picture. After we completed skills, we did one more lap and went into some of the tunnels and areas where the reef hung over. It was unlike any experience I’ve ever had! We got showered and then headed to Hollys office for lunch. Since Holly had to do work, I sat down with Jackie and we had a great talk about diving and safety, and I really appreciated her answering all my questions. She toured me around the habitats I hadn’t seen yet, and then I walked around alone and stopped at some exhibits for a while. 

The jellyfish exhibit was just beautiful, and I will spend more time there before I leave Baltimore. We ended up logging in just about a ten hour day! We got home and I fell asleep while reading a book on the couch, the long day definitely got me tired. We had the best steak and homemade mac and cheese for dinner.  I had the best first day with Holly and her husband Bill, and excited to see what the rest of the week holds!  

After the Digital Shootout, I will be heading to the National Aquarium in Baltimore! There I will be completing my DAN First Aid for Divers training. As a part of this, I have to complete online modules to be prepared for the in classroom portion of the class. With 32 chapters ahead of me, I had to take a decent amount of time on my last two days here to complete that. On Friday night, we had the much awaited competition. I felt proud of my submissions, but understood I was the least experienced photographer and still had much to learn in order to get on the podium of a photography competition one day. Russel, on the other hand, did so well in the competition! He got first in both macro categories, a second in a wide angle category, and the best in show image. It felt great to be surrounded by someone who is thriving in this industry, and I am happy that I was able to dive and learn from him this week. 

The video that Jim and Karin made where I was the subject for some shots, got second in the video category! That was super cool to be a part of. A lot of people won trips, cameras, and gift cards in the raffle at the end of the competition. My friend Bishoy won a $250 dollar gift card to ultralight in that raffle. He came up to me and told me he didn’t need anything else from their company as he already had a lot of arms and strobes and the pieces in between, and that I would get better use out of the giftcard. So, now I have money to go towards my own gear!! Thank you Bishoy! Below is the video that Jim made that I was a part of. 

V_Jim_Laurel

My time in Bonaire at the Digital Shootout was unmatched. The knowledge I gained here is priceless and I am so glad it was the first part of my internship. Now I can take these skills and apply them to all the other opportunities that arise. I am immensely grateful to everyone at Backscatter for providing me this opportunity. To Berkeley White for inviting me to the shootout and being a wonderful mentor to look up to. To Becca Boring for getting in contact with me prior to the shootout and always making sure I was set up with gear. And to James, Robin, and Thomas in the demo room for helping me switch out my lens everyday as I wanted to try something new. You are all tremendous people!

Today is the last day of shooting photos, as we have to submit all photos to the competition by early tomorrow morning. Not only is the Backscatter Shootout a great place to learn and grow with photography and diving, it is also a competition. Any photo taken by a shootout participant during the two weeks is eligible to be submitted to any of the five categories. There is macro traditional, macro unrestricted, wide angle traditional, wide angle unrestricted, and point and shoot. The traditional categories are where you have not cropped a photo, and only made general adjustments to brightness, contrast, etc. The unrestricted categories are where you are free to crop, clone, completely photoshop out divers, and edit till your heart’s content. I had quite a few macro unrestricted photos to submit (we are allowed to submit 3 per category) but I didn’t have many photos for the macro traditional category. So today I went out on the house reef for two dives in the morning and one in the afternoon with the goal of shooting at least one photo that I could submit for the macro traditional category. That meant I had to be really careful when I was shooting that the crop was exactly what I wanted, and that there was minimal backscatter in the image. With the help of other divers, I was able to locate an octopus! I was the only one down there with him so I had plenty of time to try to get a shot. However, he was pretty tucked into a rock so the composition wasn’t right. So, I headed back to the dock and stayed underneath it for a bit. Someone had mentioned that the fish underneath the dock weren’t as scared off by divers, as they were used to the commotion of boats coming in and out and divers entering and exiting the water. I came across an angelfish, and he was very cooperative and would do circles around me and the pilings. I was able to figure out my snoot angle and turn my camera so I had a vertical shot, as I couldn’t make it a vertical shot after. I was able to snag this shot and I was pretty excited about it! The background is completely black which is what I wanted, with no little speckles of backscatter. The fish is in focus, including his eye, and the crop is exactly what I wanted. 

In the afternoon, I dove with Ryan as he needed someone to hold a light in one of his shots that he was going to take near the anchor on the house reef. After dinner, we got ready for the ostracod dive! Two days after the full moon, the ostracods begin mating and can be observed by their blue luminescence that they give off when they spiral upward and mate. I decided not to bring my camera on this dive and just observe as this is a very special dive opportunity and I am not confident enough in my camera abilities to capture that yet. We got in the water about 15 minutes after the sun went down. We used dive lights to find a sandy spot on the bottom in about 20 feet of water, and then turned off the lights. Not minutes later, ostracods began popping up, but just a couple at a time. I was next to Natasha, and we were both very excited. Very suddenly, hundreds of the ostracods emerged, it was like you were looking out of a plane at night and saw all the houses twinkling below. It was a jaw dropping experience. Ebby, the dive guide, would shine his flashlight periodically to double check all divers were safe. This also made the ostracods light up even more. I am so grateful to have had this experience!

Heading to the wreck today! Wow. I am so excited. Most of the people on my boat had been there but this was a big deal for me. I have dove one wreck before, but it was wicked small compared to this. This is the wreck of the Hilma Hooker, it is around 240ft long and sitting in about 70-90ft of water. The Hilma Hooker was carrying forbidden cargo and was seized in 1984. She sank a few months later between two reefs on a sandy channel, a little suspicious. Descending down to the wreck, I realized just how big the ship really is. I was in awe. We made our way around the stern and explored the hull a bit. I then made my way to the top of the wreck, and it was cool to see everyones bubbles from inside the wreck sneaking out of little holes. I really hope to dive more wrecks this summer and learn how to photograph them better. 

We went to another reef site after, and basically everyone saw a sea turtle, but I missed it. Whoops! A bit sad about that, but all good. I returned the wide lens I had been using to the Backscatter demo room, and signed up to use the 60mm macro lens tomorrow. Since I was in the water so late last night, I took a nap to gain energy back for class  and to review and edit photos later. Erin QUigley gave a class about repositioning strobes in Lightroom, and Todd Winner explained camera optics. After dinner I helped get some finishing shots for Jim and Karins video. At the critique, Jim showed some clips we had shot the night before and I think everyone liked it a lot! Finished up the night early and went through some more photos and checked some things off my to do list. Looking forward to the next two days of diving!

Boats are heading to the infamous salt pier today! One of Bonaire’s biggest exports is salt, and there is a big conveyor belt connected to the pier that brings the salt to large ships. Ever since we have been here there has been a large ship docked so nobody was allowed to dive underneath the pier. But… today is the day that the ship finally left! Before we went there though, we headed to Angel City in search of squid and spotted eagle rays. We found squid, but no rays today. We then headed to the salt pier and got a very important briefing. Instead of the boat grabbing a mooring and staying stationary when we entered the water, we were entering the water while the boat was still moving so that we could start our dive as close to the pier as possible. It was a really fast paced entrance and super fun. Once underwater, we had to travel through the pier pilings at a fairly fast rate as the boat was also picking us up at a different location. The pilings were so tall and ominous, it was quite beautiful. When we made it to the end of the pier, we had a long swim to the boat which tired me out!

In the afternoon I went to the split photography workshop with Berkley White. There were a bit more difficult with the lens I had because it was smaller and also was a wet mount so the water would drain quickly and mess with the photo. I practiced for a bit and also got my photo taken too. Heres one below that isn’t a split shot necessarily but shows me with my camera so I liked it!

We had our nightly critique and there were a ton of great images that inspired me to get back to shooting macro.

After the critique, I helped Jim and Karin Laurel on their video idea. They made a fake moon out of four strobes and had me dive down into the ‘moonlight’. It was so fun and cool because the tarpon was attracted to the light. I felt like a movie star. To the left is a few screenshots from the video that Jim shot. We got out of the water around 11pm, which was super late since we get up at 6am every day, but it was so worth it!

Today’s boat headed first to a dive site called Alice in Wonderland, and then back to Angel City which we had explored a few days prior. I was back to using a wide angle lens, and the first dive at Alice in Wonderland was fairly uneventful. I practiced lighting sun balls, and slowing my shutter speed to see what type of movement I could get in the photo. After a surface interval, Russel and I buddied up and explored Angel City. About 35 minutes in, we were pretty shallow and came upon around 40 squid! It was just us in that area so we had plenty of subjects and I wasn’t worried about getting in anyone’s way. While I was shifting some settings, I saw a spotted eagle ray out of the corner of my eye. It was beautiful! I tried to get Russels attention but he was focused on his camera, so I was able to shoot the ray alone. At first my settings were way too bright, but luckily the ray stayed for a few minutes and I was able to change them and get a better shot. I was happy that I was shooting wide angle when I saw the ray instead of macro like the day before!

After lunch, Russel and I headed to the house reef and made a plan to drop down to 70 feet on an old row boat. It was a small boat but it gave me a chance to test out strobe brightness so that I know what to do when we go to the big wreck, the Hilma Hooker, tomorrow. There was a lot of backscatter in the test shot, so I have to be weary of that tomorrow on the big wreck.

As we made our way up the reef I noticed that around a dozen fish were all fighting over something. From what I could see, it looked like a fish spine that a fisherman would’ve thrown overboard, or a really large centipede looking thing. As I was getting closer to photograph the battle, a large fish swoops in and takes the entire thing and eats it all. It was great to get some shots of the fish with the food in its mouth as it made the image more compelling than if it were just swimming.

I quickly showered and headed to Erin Quigleys class on backscatter removal. I had learned a bit of this in a high school class, but it was a great refresher! I had to work on a module for another upcoming opportunity with the internship so I had to miss the second class. 

After dinner, I went to Berkeley Whites presentation on creative photography. My favorite part was when he explained how to paint with light. He would turn on his shutter, go ‘paint’ a wreck with light, and then turn off his light and swim back so he wasn’t in the shot. It created some really beautiful results, but takes a lot of practice. He also mentioned that when a photo has a pattern, it tends to look nice in black and white. So, I made my spotted eagle ray shot in black and white, and I do think I like it better.

Realization of the day is that we should all try to live in the moment more. I just had one of the best days ever, and they will only get better from here as I learn and grow. It’s all mindset. 

I decided to stay on the house reef today and really work on shooting macro. As I was gearing up for my dive, Jocelyn and Christine were also heading out to test out some new dive gear and they said they would love to be my buddy! The first twenty minutes of my dive were spent trying to shoot a little blenny. I was trying to get a focused shot of him while also getting comfortable with using the snoot again. Joceylyn and Christine got my attention and gestured me over towards a moray eel! He was pretty stationary in the reef so I had a decent amount of time to get a shot. Then I moved on to an arrow crab that was hidden on the next piece of coral. I would not have gotten these shots, let alone seen the crab or eel without Jocelyn and Christines help, so thank you both! Here is a picture of Joceyln and I.

On the way back to the dock, during my safety stop, I found a very cooperative pufferfish (again) and was able to snag a shot of his eye! I was very excited about this successful dive. After a surface interval, I got back in with Jocelyn and Christine and went right back to the spot where the eel was, and he was still there. I was able to improve my previous eel shot. After the second dive I felt like I had improved my macro shots and had real subjects that were interesting to viewers. Instead of diving in the afternoon I edited my photos and learned some new techniques in Lightroom. I will admit, I also took a quick nap as the diving was catching up to me! For class tonight, I went to Todd’s super macro session. He gave some great tips on both regular macro and super macro. He is inspiring me to try using a 5 power diopter that is on demo later in the week. I submitted the 3 photos  for the group critique tonight, the eel and pufferfish eye above and the arrow crab below. I got some decent feedback on how to improve them which I was so grateful for.

And a lesson for the day, is a nap fixes a lot of things. Nothing profound. Just a solid nap can make the rest of the day better and keep you energized for the rest of the week.

I hopped on the same boat today at 7am, but this time with a wide angle lens. We went t o a spot called Salt City, as it was near the conveyor belt that moved all the salt to the ships. Once I descended I practiced and changed my settings while focusing on some coral, and I was able to figure out the correct aperture, shutter speed, and ISO for the wide lens and conditions we were in. It was exciting to be able to light up such a large space. Also, when other divers were in the background of my photos, they looked so good which is something I have struggled with in the past.

The second dive was back closer to where the shootout was taking place. Russel and I found a very cooperative pufferfish and was able to get some shots of him. I decided to check out the house reef for my third dive after lunch, as someone had seen an octopus AND a sea turtle the day before. I had no luck finding these but got a cool shot of the anchor down there and Russel as he was working on a macro shot on the anchor.

Tonight’s classes started with Berkeley White explaining how to shoot into the sun while underwater, and to make it look like a sun ball or have rays poking through rather than just a blob of white mess. It was really helpful and I plan to try out his techniques next week. Then Cristian Dimitrius explained his top tips for underwater video. While I haven’t shot video yet, they applied to photography as well as they were more conceptual/mindset than instructions. Basically, be curious. We finished the night with the premiere of Cristians film Blue Brazil. This is the first time it was being played outside of Brazil as it has not been released yet. There was amazing behavior of both sea creatures and sea birds and how they interact and exist together. It was a great experience, and we had the opportunity to ask him questions after the film. I asked if he had any sequences that he failed to film that he wished he could’ve put in the shot. He said that he saw a tiger shark attack a sea turtle from the boat, and so wished he could’ve gotten it on film as it would have fit the storyline well. 

From Cristian, I recognize that I need to be more curious. The past few days I have been getting caught up in how exactly to take specific photos, and what types I can take. Instead, I should try to do something different, more creative. I will use the techniques I have learned to try to produce an image that tells more of a story. We will see how that goes tomorrow.

Woke up bright and early at 6am to get my camera gear ready and breakfast eaten before heading to the dive boat at 7am. Today I am borrowing a macro lens from Backscatters demo gear! I have never shot macro before, so this should be interesting. The first dive site was called Angel City, and it was a shallow reef that was perfect for macro photography. Past Intern Russel Laman was also shooting macro so we stuck together. I tried my best, but definitely want to review the recommended camera settings for macro and maybe try a snoot. Towards the end of the dive I gestured towards a large group of squid. There were probably 30! I learned my lesson on squid and other photographer etiquette as I came up on the squid too fast which disturbed the peace. Now I know! Unfortunately, the battery in my dive computer died so I sat out the second dive for safety. I am hoping we go back to the wreck site that the second dive was on so I can do it before I leave. 

After lunch I visited the demo gear room and there was a snoot available to use! This will be my first time using one. A snoot is a lite that creates a small circle of focus that is great at enhancing macro photography. After getting a new battery in my dive computer, I found Todd Winner on the dock and we dove together as we were both working on macro. The snoot was difficult for me at first, but Todd and Greg both made adjustments to my setup underwater which helped tremendously. Todd even held my snoot towards the end of the dive and I was able to get this picture of a blenny.

I was very excited after this dive as I felt like I took what I learned in the classroom about macro and applied it.We then had a quick turn around and headed to Erin Quigleys class that discussed how to remove the cyan color from photos through Lightroom. This is very helpful, especially since I plan to shoot wide angle tomorrow and will run into that issue more. Then Hergen Spalink taught a class about color correction with video. I have not shot a video yet, but that may be something I try next week. Got a quick dinner and then headed to tonight’s critique. I submitted three photos and was very nervous for them to pop up on the screen. Here’s the two other photos I submitted along with the one of the blemmy from above. 

I think the lesson I learned today is that I am very much a beginner. When I first think about being a beginner here I get so nervous because I feel like I should be at the caliber of everyone else, in photography and diving. But no, everyone is so nice and helpful and every time I run into a situation or have a question that may be common knowledge to them, they are very helpful and it feels like they really want me to learn. After chatting with some guys, they went around the corner and started talking about how old they were when they were just starting out diving and how they felt, and it made me realize that everyone was a beginner once.

I arrived in Bonaire for the Backscatter Digital Shootout Competition around 4:30pm yesterday! I am beyond excited to be here and so grateful to the Boston Sea Rovers for sending me here and to Backscatter for hosting me and planning an amazing event full of learning. For those who don’t know, the Annual Backscatter Digital Shootout is an event where photographers can gather and learn from experienced and successful underwater photographers, videographers, and editors and simultaneously dive every day and practice those skills. At the end of the two weeks, participants submit their photos and videos and hefty prizes are given to the winners. This is a dream, and I am in shock that I get to be a part of it. While in the airport

on the way to Bonaire, Cristian Dimitrius came up to me and asked if I was also attending the Shootout, since he noticed my camera gear. Cristian is teaching at this event and is a very successful photographer. It was funny because I was looking at his website and photos not ten minute before he came up to me.

Anyways, since I had arrived late (due to finishing finals for school), I was sent straight to a class upon arrival. The first class was about how to place your strobes presented by Jim Decker. The second was about video editing basics presented by James Emery. After dinner, Berkeley White walked me around and I was shown all the demo gear that was available for us to try during the competition. Afterwards, we all headed to the critique. Everyone submitted their photos and videos from the prior two days and the pros gave feedback. It is a really great way to learn as you get to hear everyone’s feedback.

I woke up today and packed up my new dive gear, provided by the internship, and headed to the dock. I met up with Dan Baldoocchi and he helped me go through the safety briefing and dive orientation for Bonaire. We hopped in the water and made sure my buoyancy was correct as I usually dive in a thicker wetsuit. Then I grabbed my camera and swam around the house reef. I definitely felt overwhelmed as there was so much to take photos of, and I also am not perfect at strobe placement or camera settings and adjustments yet. When I finished my dive, I was told we could shore dive whenever we wanted to. There are dozens of full tanks on the dock and I could come any time of the day or night and explore, so cool!

Now that I had done my checkout dive on the reef, I signed up for the afternoon dive. There were only five people on my boat which was nice because I got to talk to all of the divers individually. We made it to a nice dive site off of Klein Bonaire, and got all our gear ready to go. My camera was shadowed in comparison to some of the setups people had, they were so complex. Once in the water, I realized how nice it is to dive with other photographers! Everyone moved slowly and took their time capturing their own little moments. I didn’t have to worry about venturing off to take a photo since we were all doing that. I practiced the different strobe placements that Jim had taught us the night before, and am realizing that strobes really can make or break a photo. Towards the end of the dive, we came across 3 squid! Once topside, my new friend Louis said there were 8, so I must have missed a few.

We got back to the dock and I headed to the demo room, where all the cameras are kept. I asked questions about aperture and shutter speed, and how they should be changed based on the subject or the type of photos I am taking. I signed up to use the macro lens on my camera tomorrow and I am very excited! There are so many little critters that are captured better with a macro lens. Then I headed to two classes. They were about close focus wide angle photography with Berkley White and one about macro photography with Jim Decker. These were EXACTLY the classes I needed, and I took plenty of notes. After dinner I realized I had some issues with my Adobe installation, and Erin Quigley was an amazing help. I could not have figured it out without her.

Throughout the day I felt so many emotions. I was so excited, but also felt like I didn’t belong here as the rest of the group has presented amazing photos and I have nothing to show yet. But that’s the thing, I don’t have any to show YET. I am learning and I will apply those skills throughout the next 9 days and I will improve. Sitting here writing this, I realize the feeling I had today was discomfort. I am a big believer that we should all seek discomfort, as it helps us grow and really live. So I will continue to seek discomfort, improve my photography and diving skills, and meet some really cool people while doing it.