Poling revisited

Last weekend was my first trip to the Poling in 2014. Originally I had hoped to create some compositions from a series of photos taken along the deck. In water, I ultimately ditched those plans because of some logistical issues. First being that there were 13 divers in the water and visibility was not great. Also, I was working much harder than I like to underwater, possibly due to the amount of donuts I ate earlier in the week. I made the decision to hang by the stern (stern of the stern) and work on some natural light photos. 

I was very pleased to recreate Dave Stillman's iconic stern photo, almost 20 years later (shown above). Surface interval be damned, Chuck and I jumped in for a second dive before the rest of the gang arrived. I had a a few minutes to set up this shot. With some Lightroom magic I was able to buy myself a bit more visibility than there was in real life. I've been trying to get this shot for a while now.

Shortly after I nailed the stern photo, divers began dropping in flooding the ghostly deck with light. After shooting everyone playing for a bit, I swam in the direction of the break to find some more quiet space. I took great care trying to photograph the cunner that were swarming around happily eating bits of detritus that was kicked up by all the recent activity. It took several attempts, but I was able to capture them using the sun for contrast.

On the way back to the line, I shot Chuck lowering his new gopro rig down into the wreck, I left a touch of green in that photo. Then I followed him back to the mooring shooting him cruising above the deck. I particularly like those small staircases. 

No matter how many times I see the poling, I can always seem to entertain myself. And for the photo buffs... black and white is almost essential to capture the depth and contrast of the wrecks in New England. These were shot with a 15mm prime lens, f2.8, 1/100, ISO 4000ish. As always, a million thanks to the Cape Ann Divers crew, I could not get these shots without their help!