|
Swimming to the Surface Before the Sharks Come
"That's Ugo. He is French Polynesian, and he lives on the island of Rangiroa. In this particular photo, he's spearfishing on small coral brains. We're about 60 feet (18 meters) underwater, without tanks, only fins and a mask. Ugo can hold his breath for about 4 minutes. I, however, went over a minute, and I was about to burst. In this particular photo, I'm at about 30 feet (9 meters), watching as he went down to 60 feet (18 meters), waited patiently, and Ugo shot what is a very, very large parrot fish, which we had later for lunch—raw. We're grateful that Ugo has better lung capacity and a better shot than we did or we would've been hungry.
"I think this image captures how self-sufficient the Polynesians are with the ocean. They call the ocean their refrigerator."
—Photographer Peter McBride
Photography Notes
- Camera: NikonOS
- Film: Fuji Provia 100
- Lens: 20 mm
- Shutter speed: 1/125th
- Aperture: f4
- Time of day: around noon
"When you shoot underwater, you only have one roll so you have to be somewhat selective about what pictures you take. It can be a consuming process to change film if you don't have other cameras available. Because we were in kayaks I had a very minimal amount of equipment, so I had to be very patient and conservative with the shutter.
"It's very hard to focus because you're looking through multiple lenses: Your mask lens, the underwater housing lens and the camera lens. Trust your eye when focusing underwater. If you can't see well enough, use as great a depth of field as possible (a smaller aperture). Or try to guess your distance from your subject and preset your focus."
|
|
