Creative Underwater Photography Class - Kapalai
Its been a while since I posted - not due to a lack of diving, although that hasn’t been as frequent as I would have liked (More on that in another blog post) but have had some fairly significant life changes over the past few months. Anyway, I now catching up on some old diving trips from late 2021 which seems like a lifetime ago now! As you may know from reading my blog, Sipadan Island in Sabah, Malaysia is my favourite place to dive, specifically, I love to stay at Kapalai water villas - the place is just majestic! I won’t bore you yet again with the details of the place - it’s magical - for those that haven’t been - trust me! I was lucky enough to be able to travel there once again, this time to do an underwater course with Ipah Uid Lynn - another great Malaysian underwater photographer who is renowned for her creative approach to underwater imaging. (Check out her website to see for yourself) The whole trip (3rd December to 7th December 2021) was organised by Prestige Scuba in Kuala Lumpur and there were a number of divers who would be taking to opportunity to hone their photography skills as well.
Sun rays bursting through over the reef around Sipadan Island.
A small flower taken using a snoot - a focused beam of light that helps to achieve a dark background
Having travelled to Sabah the month before I was already pretty well adjusted to the realities of travelling post MCO, having to get a COVID test, masking up and generally not feeling very comfortable. This time, rather than flying with Air Asia I chose to fly with Malaysia Airlines which turned out to be a much better choice as I got upgraded to business class and thus had more room and a much more comfortable experience generally. While it was an internal flight, this did mean that I arrived in Sabah feeling much less stressed and tired that I would have done. The trip was pretty well organised via Prestige Scuba back in Kuala Lumpur and we were greeted at the airport by the staff of Kapalai and then whisked off to Semporna to meet the boat over to the resort. Once we arrived and checked in to the resort we went on the customary orientation dive on the house reef, something which I was already pretty well acclimatised to as it was just a few weeks since we had been before. After the check in dive we had some free time to get our gear organised, cameras all set up and checked and rooms organised. That evening, after dinner which was the usual buffet of various Malaysian and Asian specialities Ipah gather us all around and got us to start thinking about creative photography on land. She gave us a few little challenges where we had to go out and take photos of something common but with an unusual twist, such as using a snoot or alternative lighting. The results were interesting to see and it was fair to say that there were a few very talented individuals whose underwater output I was really looking forward to seeing. Feeling reassured that I had made the right choice by booking the trip I retired to my room for some well earned rest
The next morning I awoke with a sense of anticipation - I have always loved macro photography, in fact it’s probably the easiest underwater photography discipline to start with, but the real skill is in taking shots of subjects such as nudibranchs with a new twist to really bring it to life. After breakfast we all headed to the dive centre and geared up, heading over to Mabul island which is home to fantastic macro photography opportunities. The first site we dove was Eel Garden and we started looking for rare subjects to try and get that killer shot - unfortunately, although I found a few cleaner shrimp and very small Nudibranchs I had forgotten to start off simple and get my eye in - I struggled with buoyancy and focus and came up at the end of the dive somewhat disappointed with my results and actually felt a little despondent. Still, there were still a couple more dives to go and I made a resolution to myself that I would really smash it on the second dive. As luck would have it, for the second dive we were scheduled to go to the SeaVentures dive rig which is home to a wide array of life which you would necessarily expect to find there! Once we arrived there on the boat, backrolled in and descended to the bottom we were immediately in luck with a number of nudibranchs immediately visible, unfortunately there was a little bit of current, however that didn’t seem to put me off and a seemed to hit my stride oaths dive. I got a few good shots that I was happy with before someone pointed out a Sea Hare, a very, very small nudibranch type sea slug that was moving quickly. I position my camera and managed to get off a few shots and was happy when they seemed to come out well. Immediately after that my dive buddy who was experimenting with coloured lights ran out of camera battery and offered to light up a few subjects for me - the hosts came out brilliantly and although I felt a little guilty that I got the shot and not him I was absolutely delighted with the results. The final dive of the day was at Gurnard Ground in Kampala itself - it weans a great deal to write home about, still some nice Nudibranchs, but nothing really to write home about.
A Nudibranch lit up with a combination of pink and blue lights
A small Sea Hare at SeaVentures dive rig
That evening we did a night dive on the house reef - I absolutely love night dives, the reef just seems to come alive and really “pop” we found a number of interesting subjects, although I found myself taking most of my time taking pictures of a particularly nice Nembrotha nudibranch.
The second day we were heading to Sipadan island and another chance to break out the wide angle lens and cross those fingers for the barracuda tornado and hopefully a surprise guest or two! The trip to Sipadan necessitates that you start early to get to the island just after sunrise for the best action. The first dive was at Coral Garden, and it didn’t disappoint - we were almost immediately greeted by the world famous schooling barracuda which we spent move of the dive photographing - it really is one of natures spectacles and I never get tired of it, it really does take by breath away. I was pretty happy with a couple of the shots I got. The second dive we did at Barracuda Point, unfortunately it seemed we had used up our luck on the first dive and although the scenery is awe inspiring with the huge drop offs unto the deep blue we didn’t see the Barracuda again. Still, you can’t have it all your own way. The final dive was spent at Turtle Patch, home to the famous turtle rock as seen on Blue Planet II. We had great fun playing around trying to get photos of the resident turtle and hoping to see the huge resident school of Jack Fish, luck wasn’t with us unfortunately and we didn’t get to see them. We headed back to the resort for a well earned dinner and some relaxing drinks in the evening.
Unfortunately, due to work I had to leave early and the next day I headed back to Kuala Lumpur. I had had a brilliant time, learn some great techniques for macro photography which I was to use again pretty soon and made some great friends!
Sorry the this was a rather brief post - the passage of time and the lack of water has dimmed my memory somewhat, but I should be posting about the last trip we took in Asia before leaving.
