Some of you may already know me from my other photo-thread, revolving around catfish: https://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/vie ... hp?t=51453
For those who don't know who I am;
I am a Norwegian who loves traveling and wildlife, and I'm employed as a field-biologist at the Institute of Marine Research within the group "demersal fishes" in Bergen. My main hobby is herping (looking for reptiles and amphibians) and documentation of species through photography. This means I photograph more than just catfish, and Jools suggested to create a thread here to share some of my non-catfish shots from around the world.
With my profession, and my eagerness to travel, I get my hands and camera on quite a few rare or seldom seen species, especially when doing research cruises like I am on now in Cote d'Ivoire to Ghana doing demersal ecosystem surveys. So my thought here is to do a post every now and then where I might highlight a species or genus from my travels or from work. Meaning it will not be focused around a single travel, but everything from vacation in Indonesia to research cruises around Svalbard. I will keep it to mostly aquatic wildlife, but I miiiight just have to sneak in a snake or a gecko from time to time, hope that is a-ok
This first post will mainly be focused on how the images of fish and other aquatic wildlife are taken, as this is quite essential to actually taking these pictures.
When we do demersal surveys we do bottom trawls that we sort through and then collect biological data from the catch. As we work the catch I usually have a 50-100L tub of saltwater at the ready to keep anything that is alive alive for a quick shoot and eventual release. Unfortunately most of the catch is in poor shape, but every trawl some individuals manage to get their strength back. If so, then I snap some photos and release them back out at sea. My set-up is simple; an opaque storage box with one side cut out and replaced by a glass shelf from IKEA taped in place by gorilla waterproof patch and seal tape. Then I have two external flashes at each side of the tank to provide light, some decoration from the trawl in the form of rocks, shells, algae or similar stuff, all in-front of a lovely background consisting of a black garbage bag. The whole set up cost me around 40$ to make and is a rather low tech, easy construction.
Here is the set-up in action:
