Notes from the field :

What you see here are three distinct animal life forms, the orange cup corals, the red decorator crab, and the brown sponge it is clinging to. There is no shortage of unique and colorful life forms when underwater in a place like Bonaire.

This particular dive site, called the Town Pier, is very popular for macro photography because of the various critters that come out at night. The town pier is a bit different in that all of the life exists on the pilings supporting the pier itself. The bottom is pretty much just sand and debris.

Decorator crabs are very hard to see during the day, often tucked away in a secret hiding spot. However, at night, they are freely roaming around, foraging for food. You also do not see the corals with their polyps extended during the day, they also feed at night. Their translucent details are fascinating.

These combinations of night time activity and the spectacular color make the Town Pier in Bonaire a breathtaking night dive. Uniquely enough, the town pier is somewhat of an erie place at night when not close to the creature covered pillars. All you see with your dive light on are these tall columns, like trying to make your way through a forest with a pen light. However, on closer inspection, you see color like you never could have imagined, life is everywhere. Simply an amazing place to be, total sensory overload.

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About the subject :

Decorator crabs typically have pieces of sponge that they pick and place on their backs to grow. Another example of the many symbiotic relationships that exist with underwater life. The crab itself is only about an inch (25 mm) long.

Orange cup corals (Tubastraea coccinea) become much more interesting at night when their polyps are extended to feed. During the day, these retract and the corals look like small, hard orange knobs. They typically exist in small colonies like this.

The encrusting sponges cover many of the pillars in the Town Pier in a variety of colors and forms.

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Technical details :

This image was made using a Nikon F100 camera body, a 105mm f2.8 AF macro lens, in an Aquatica underwater housing with twin Ikelite Ai substrobes. One of the interesting challenges in night time SLR photography is being able to focus. Obviously in the blackness you need some light for the cameras sensors to function. Built-in modeling lights in the Ikelite strobes helped provide this, but still not enough to use autofocus. Manual focus was used during the entire dive at the Town Pier. The film used is Fuji Velvia, of course!

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About the composition :

1] I liked the way the crab and the coral polyps were pointing towards each other - supporting the symbiotic relationship they hold.

2] Somewhat of a diagonal split of the frame, separating both colors and life forms

3] The details in the polyps can make for an image in themselves.

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