420 Dive Log Australasia OCTOBER 2026

Marine life communicates discomfort in many ways. An animal may retreat deeper into shelter, turn away repeatedly, change colour, adopt a defensive posture or abandon what it was doing. When I see those signs, I stop. At that point I would no longer be photographing natural behaviour; I would be photographing the animal’s response to me. I am especially cautious around animals guarding eggs, feeding, mating or occupying a permanent den. These behaviours can be both important and vulnerable. Ethical responsibility also continues after the dive. The exact location of a rare or easily disturbed animal does not always need to be made public. Protecting the subject and its habitat matters more than directing additional people to the same place. The discipline of getting close Once I have found a subject and understood its behaviour, I still need to place the camera where it can make the photograph. Every unnecessary centimetre of water between the lens and the animal absorbs colour, lowers contrast and increases the effect of suspended particles. Zoom is not a substitute for proximity. Optical zoom changes the framing, but it does not remove the water between me and the subject. Digital zoom goes further in the wrong direction by enlarging or cropping a smaller portion of the captured image. Neither gives me the clarity, colour or strobe effectiveness that comes from a careful physical approach. Getting closer is what matters. Freediving gives me the ability to get there quietly. That approach begins at the surface. Before descending, I consider where the animal is, the direction of the light and the movement of the water. An efficient duck-dive lets me enter cleanly and descend without unnecessary splashing. Whenever conditions permit, I begin slightly up-current and face into the flow as I close the distance. This gives me more control over my speed and helps carry any disturbed particles away from the animal and the area I am photographing. A gentle bottom current can sometimes help by moving suspended sand out of the frame. Too much current has the opposite effect. Fighting to remain still consumes energy and shortens the useful part of my breath-hold. I am looking

Top: The result — a pale octopus mother guarding her eggs deep inside a plastic pipe den at 11 metres.

for enough flow to clean the water without forcing me to battle continuously for position. As I descend, I slow down. Rapid finning, sudden changes of direction, extending the camera towards an animal, or casting a shadow and changing the light falling on it can all trigger an immediate escape response. A slow, indirect path is usually less threatening. I try to come level with, or slightly below, the subject and avoid defaulting to a steep top-down view. That perspective creates a stronger connection with leaving a small gap between the camera and the pipe opening to allow the strobe light to reach the octopus and eggs. I also used 4× optical zoom to frame the subject from outside the den. Bottom: The process — to photograph her, I had to position one strobe so that it fired directly down into the pipe, while

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DIVE LOG Australasia #420 October’ 26

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