Last week I treated myself for my 30th+ birthday ; ) and headed for a long weekend down to Tioman Island Malaysia to attend the first Malaysia based INON workshop organised by Tim Ho/Oceanic PhtoLab, special guest from Japan of course Torii-san I like to call “INON Maiden”. My objective was practicing with light and during the two full days of shooting I left my strobes on dry land. I am thankful to mentor friend shifu Tim Ho for the great advises.
Reaching the place was easier to say than to do; besides the 5,5 hours flight from Hangzhou to KL and the 5 hours car ride to reach the East cost of Malaysia (special thanks to the fab couple Fahrana and Rajia Oceanic PhotoLab.com for the long driving), it took another 2 hours boat trip to reach finally Tekek pier on the island, then a short 4×4 ride in a thick rain forest to finally reach the tranquil Juara Beach on the East secluded coast of Tioman Island. The place and the event highlights along with some of my shots are depicted below. Hope you enjoy!
Morning glory, sunrise through the jetty in low tide
Juara Bay looking South early morning
Amigo dive resort where Kanji and An were best guides and spotters
Juara Beach, near the jetty
Our bungalows right “on” Juara Beach
Torii-san “INON Maiden” best bungalow’s mate (photo courtesy of Tim Ho’s FB page)
One of the highlights of the stay was when we almost sunk our boat due to overloading, we all had a good laugh
There was even a cake for me to celebrate my B-day (photo courtesy of Tim Ho, FB page, human-light torch courtesy of INON Maiden Torii-san)
Ready to rock n’ roll
(courtesy TimHo/Oceanic PhotoLab https://www.facebook.com/oceanicphotolab/?fref=nf)
Until next time happy shooting everybody! (courtesy TimHo/Oceanic PhotoLab on FB)
The last day we visited the Juara Turtle Project, a great initiative; every year a number of turtles mainly green turtle and only a few hawksbill female turtles return to Juara Beach to deposit their eggs here, this is one of the very few remaining nesting spots on Tioman Island. The project act as a protective measure to avoid eggs to be looted by ignorant people; beaches are patrolled, the nests are spotted and the eggs are removed and placed into a hatchery where the baby turtles can hatch in peace before being released into the ocean. It’s another journey full of dangers the one beginning that day; only 1 out of 10.000 baby turtles will make it back to Juara Beach some 20+ years later to deposit their eggs! What a great place, please visit www.juaraturtleproject.com
The hatchery, it takes about 8 to 10 weeks for the turtle babies to hatch
There is a lot to learn from the project’s team
And last but not least here are my highlight photos from this great new UW photo shooting safari. Unless differently indicated the photos are slightly computer edited not to cheat the viewer but to enhance their appearance and make them what to my eyes looks more attractive. I have used Olympus E-PL5 and INON torch without strobes.
Fishes revenge
Nudi picaboo (slight crop only).
Cushion sea star shrimp (only slight cropping). She is so tiny that even through my +20 dioptre focal lens I could not see her clearly enough, only a magnifier saved me here.
Waking talking blenny. Blennies are actually my n. 1 favorite macro subjects!! (only edited in B&W)
A funny encounter between blenny and goby (only edited in B&W). After many attempts I had to position myself diagonally to finally get them both in focus
Reef blenny (25% cropped). My 60mm (120 equivalent) is fixed but the good focus distance allows me to stay at safe distance so not to scare off the timid blenny.
A curious rock blenny reaches out of his home on a vertical wall. Blennies love surge zones and yes it was a surge exposed area! This is only slightly cropped so without zooming look how close I was
Tiger goby (tweaked the temperature)
A colorful nudibranch right below Juara jetty, unfortunately she was avidly feeding on the hydroid and would not allow me to see her face but rather her bum, yet her colors are still vivid and beautiful to me
That’s all for now, thanks for visiting and hit like it if you enjoyed reading. Cheers
Nico
