Bonaire Day 4: New Friends and Naps

ByHailey Springer

I decided to stay on the house reef today and really work on shooting macro. As I was gearing up for my dive, Jocelyn and Christine were also heading out to test out some new dive gear and they said they would love to be my buddy! The first twenty minutes of my dive were spent trying to shoot a little blenny. I was trying to get a focused shot of him while also getting comfortable with using the snoot again. Joceylyn and Christine got my attention and gestured me over towards a moray eel! He was pretty stationary in the reef so I had a decent amount of time to get a shot. Then I moved on to an arrow crab that was hidden on the next piece of coral. I would not have gotten these shots, let alone seen the crab or eel without Jocelyn and Christines help, so thank you both! Here is a picture of Joceyln and I.

On the way back to the dock, during my safety stop, I found a very cooperative pufferfish (again) and was able to snag a shot of his eye! I was very excited about this successful dive. After a surface interval, I got back in with Jocelyn and Christine and went right back to the spot where the eel was, and he was still there. I was able to improve my previous eel shot. After the second dive I felt like I had improved my macro shots and had real subjects that were interesting to viewers. Instead of diving in the afternoon I edited my photos and learned some new techniques in Lightroom. I will admit, I also took a quick nap as the diving was catching up to me! For class tonight, I went to Todd’s super macro session. He gave some great tips on both regular macro and super macro. He is inspiring me to try using a 5 power diopter that is on demo later in the week. I submitted the 3 photos  for the group critique tonight, the eel and pufferfish eye above and the arrow crab below. I got some decent feedback on how to improve them which I was so grateful for.

And a lesson for the day, is a nap fixes a lot of things. Nothing profound. Just a solid nap can make the rest of the day better and keep you energized for the rest of the week.

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