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Dennis the Friendly Dugong
Knowing there is something to photograph but not being able to find can be rather frustrating, especially when you are underwater limited by an annoying but finite thing as an air supply. This is what we ran into when looking for a celebrity, in Egypt, again: under water.
Try imagining an area as large as a couple of football fields of seagrass and an underwater visibility of about 20 meters (60 feet) and you'll understand it's not easy to find a specific living animal, even it is as big as two grown up humans.
The "thing" I am talking about is "Dennis", the famous resident seacow (or Dugong, it's one of the three members of the Manatee family) of the Abu Dabbab bay near Port Ghalib in the Marsa Alam region of Egypt.
Seeing these pictures you've probably guessed we found it but it took us two one-hour dives to actually find it. Sure, we did come across plenty of huge and approacheable Turtles and a couple of large Stingrays but imagine being a the last stage of your dive because your tank is running empty and then spotting an enormous dust cloud among the seagrass - the telltale Dugong signature... However, no Dennis to match it.
Turned out it was right above us and while we were getting highly frustrated not seeing it, he was just getting a breath of fresh air. Our paths finally crossed when we decided to go up and finish the dive while he was going down to continue vacuuming the seafloor.
We squeezed a few last minutes at our ample air supply... not being too deep made it a safe bet but most of us came up with nearly empty tanks but a mind filled with awe!
The photo was taken with a Canon 20D in an underwater casing made by UK-Germany for this model. Attached was 1 Canon 540EX Strobe (also in an UK-Germany casing). Camera settings (manual): 400ISO, 1/200 sec. at f6.3 and ETTL flash.
Follow my work on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Or check my most interesting shots at Flickriver.
Dennis the Friendly Dugong
Knowing there is something to photograph but not being able to find can be rather frustrating, especially when you are underwater limited by an annoying but finite thing as an air supply. This is what we ran into when looking for a celebrity, in Egypt, again: under water.
Try imagining an area as large as a couple of football fields of seagrass and an underwater visibility of about 20 meters (60 feet) and you'll understand it's not easy to find a specific living animal, even it is as big as two grown up humans.
The "thing" I am talking about is "Dennis", the famous resident seacow (or Dugong, it's one of the three members of the Manatee family) of the Abu Dabbab bay near Port Ghalib in the Marsa Alam region of Egypt.
Seeing these pictures you've probably guessed we found it but it took us two one-hour dives to actually find it. Sure, we did come across plenty of huge and approacheable Turtles and a couple of large Stingrays but imagine being a the last stage of your dive because your tank is running empty and then spotting an enormous dust cloud among the seagrass - the telltale Dugong signature... However, no Dennis to match it.
Turned out it was right above us and while we were getting highly frustrated not seeing it, he was just getting a breath of fresh air. Our paths finally crossed when we decided to go up and finish the dive while he was going down to continue vacuuming the seafloor.
We squeezed a few last minutes at our ample air supply... not being too deep made it a safe bet but most of us came up with nearly empty tanks but a mind filled with awe!
The photo was taken with a Canon 20D in an underwater casing made by UK-Germany for this model. Attached was 1 Canon 540EX Strobe (also in an UK-Germany casing). Camera settings (manual): 400ISO, 1/200 sec. at f6.3 and ETTL flash.
Follow my work on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Or check my most interesting shots at Flickriver.