Wet Life / 18 September, 2011
The Eye of the Baitball
Cormorant | An underwater pursuit
I found this great circling shoal of grunt fish and watched it over two days. I would dive down and then sit on the sandy bottom some 20 metres below the surface to watch with the sky behind the fish ball it looked like a shimmering body of energy. I just needed a focal point to get the picture I was after. A pelagic cormorant was also watching the fish, and now and then it would shoot a hole through the ever-tightening baitball (tightening in response to the predator), making it easier for it to pick off individual fish. I tried to predict the angle that the cormorant would use. After many attempts, using a fisheye lens and strobes to illuminate the fish and the sandy bottom, I got the shot.
All-Over Winner. Montier 2012 - Concours Internacional de la Photo Animalière et de Nature. / All-Over Winner. HBW 2012 - Handbook of the Birds of the World. / All-Over Winner. Narava 2012 - Mednarodni Natečaj / First Prize Winner. Birds category. Nature Images Awards 2012 - Melvita / Golden Lux Prize. Landscape and Nature category. LUX 2012. / First Prize Winner. Underwater category. GDT 2013 - European Wildlife Photographer of the Year. / Runner Up. Animal Behaviour: Birds category. WPY 2012 - Wildlife Photographer of the Year.
Sea of Cortez
27°24'05" N | 110°42'11" W
Baja California, Mexico