Notes from the field :

This seahorse was photographed on one of the reefs surrounding the island of Bonaire, in the Netherland Antilles, just off the coast of Venezuela, South America. Bonaire is well-known amongst divers for having abundant subjects for macro photography.

This particular dive site, called Margate Bay, is pretty well known to the divemasters for having seahorses around. Despite the divemaster (Jackson, from the Plaza Resort) knowing just about exactly where to find this particular critter, you still had to look very hard to even spot it. It pays to slow down when swimming over a reef - the slower you go - the more you see!

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About the subject :

The Longsnout Seahorse (Hippocampus reidi), typically is pretty tolerant of divers and underwater photographers, but they require a very slow and careful approach. They are also rare to find in the Caribbean. Be wary of your surroundings, as seahorses can sometimes be tucked in hard to reach places, to avoid kicking or touching surrounding reef. Its simply not worth the shot if it means harming the subject or anything surrounding it.

Seahorses themselves are part of the Pipefish family, where the male actually carries the young.

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Technical details :

This image was made using a Nikonos V underwater camera, with a 28 mm f2.8 Nikkor UW lens, and extension tubes set for a 1:3 magnification. Film used was one of our favorite for underwater macro, Fuji Velvia, which has an excellent, saturated color palette. Exposure was made at f22, with an Ikelite Ai TTL strobe. The slide was scanned using a Polaroid SS4000 filmscanner at 4000 dpi, and then resized to 72 dpi for web display.

The black background is a beneficial effect of not having much behind the seahorse when the image was made. This allowed the strobe light to fall off very rapidly without lighting any background elements.

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About the composition :

1] Eye is pretty close to a "rule of thirds" power point

2] I wish the complete tail were in the frame - but the angled coral makes for a dynamic element

3] The black background creates a nice contrast, emphasizing color. There is also lots of space for a magazine cover title space.

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