Ball of Silversides – Grand Cayman Island – Ellen Cuylaerts
Ball of Silversides – Grand Cayman Island – Ellen Cuylaerts
What an incredible school of fish. You can almost see the movement in this still image. I love how Ellen used black and white to create an almost above water feel. As if they are schooling little fairies in some dark cave. As you probably imagine, this image didn’t create itself so please read Ellen’s wonderful account below then check out her magical underwater website here www.ellencuylaerts.com
Enjoy!
Enter Ellen:
Every year, tarpons, groupers, jacks & divers await the return of the silversides: thousands of little silvery fish, bundling up to make themselves bigger and less vulnerable to be able to grow while hiding in caves and caverns before they head out to the open again.
This year in Grand Cayman, Mid-July…the silversides arrived at Devil’s Grotto, (Eden Rock) a beautiful dive site, not to deep, not to shallow, with residents as lots of tarpons, a school of horse-eyed jacks, an occasional stingray or eagle ray, squids and lots of little critters. My husband and I went for a dive. He had his camera and Sola lights with him to take film footage and I took my micro 4/3 Olympus EPL-2. Since I know it didn’t perform well on higher ISO (+400), I was looking for some natural light entering the caves to shoot the silvery fish. I didn’t like to shoot them with strobe since it was my first time and I know the strobe light can be too harsh, with gives red fishes.
My husband entered a big cave where the silversides were everywhere, a beautiful sight, so I tried to shoot there. His Sola lights though were really bothering my pictures. I entered a little side cave and saw this small bundle of fish, moving together as tarpons came closer, trying to escape them, and I saw a beautiful bundle of sunlight entering the cave, it was noon, the rays where magnificent.
I looked for a good angle to capture the rays, worked on my settings to get nice contrast and waited…waited and waited until the silversides were at this one spot, in this closed bundle and….got this picture.
A week later I went back with my D800 and new Nauticam housing and started to shoot with the strobes, manual, different settings, it was a beautiful August and I got the pictures my D800 was made for (www.ellencuylaerts.com) but still…I can’t wait for it to be summer in Cayman again!
Camera: Olympus EPL-2 and PT-EP03 underwater housing
Lens: Panasonic FE 8mm
Dome: Zen Dome DP100EP
ISO: 200
F-stop: f4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/200 no strobe
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