shamsulazhar.com

click for slideshowI love the ocean…

…and I’m constantly trying to convince people to SCUBA dive so that they can see for themselves the magnificence that is the ocean life¹.

The PADI Discover Scuba Diving program is a PADI course that provides a safe and gentle introduction to diving.

Recently I managed to convince a few of my colleagues into taking this course. It was done in a hotel pool not too far from our office, so we went there straight from work.

BTW, I’d like to thank Global Scuba for providing us with the free course.

1. As the saying goes “Give a man a fish and he sees the fish for a day. Teach a man to SCUBA, and he can see fishes for a lifetime”. Ok…ok, I just made that one up. [back]

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If you have a bunch of photos you’d like to share with people, I would highly recommend using a freely downloadable software from Microsoft called Photo Story 3 for Windows. It allows the user to create a video slide show, complete with audio track using the user’s still photo collection.

The beauty of the program is that it is so easy to use. It takes the ‘wizard’ approach where the software guides you through each step of the video creation process. For audio the user is able to add a narration or alternatively like what I’ve done in this sample, is to use the built in music generator. You just need to play around with a few settings and voila……instant soundtrack. Perfect for people with zero musical talent like me. However, one of my colleagues said that the music sounds like it came from a porn flick .

Humpph……I bet he’s just jealous.

Anyways, you can download a sample of what I’ve created using photos taken whilst SCUBA diving around north Sulawesi, Indonesia by clicking here.

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This picture was taken during a dive trip in February 2003. We were in a small speedboat returning from a dive and it was a long ride back to the island. Because it was an open boat, it got pretty windy and wet very quickly especially with all the saltwater spray generated by the boat moving through the water.

One of the divers decided that it was a good idea to hide her head in the jacket like in the picture……and as you can see a few of us had a fun time taking pictures with her.

The funny thing was she was never aware of what happening around her the whole time. Fancy finding about this on somebody’s website .

click for slideshowI find dolphins very intriguing creatures. They seem to enjoy the presence of humans. I’ve seen in numerous occasions dolphin approaching the boats I’m in, in what appears to be in a state of apparent glee. This appearance is further enhanced by what seems to us humans as a mouth fixed in a permanent grin. After approaching the boat, they would then show off their swimming prowess by jumping out sometimes in unison out of the water.

Another common behavior is having them swimming right in front of a moving boat riding the waves made by the bow which makes it looks like it is trying to race with the boat. I guess that’s why in the Malay language dolphins are called ‘ikan lumba-lumba’ which roughly translates to ‘racing fish’.

These set of pictures were taken on the journey back from Bunaken Island to Manado in Sulawesi, Indonesia. What happened was, halfway through the boat ride, the boatman spotted a group of dolphins about 200 meters away. He immediately stopped the boat and alerted us to their presence. Knowing the dolphins’ behavior, I quickly grabbed my camera, went to the front of the boat and lay down waiting for them to approach.

Sure enough, the school of dolphins approaches our boat and started showing off their acrobatics. When the boat started to move a few of them would take turns ‘surfing the waves’ in front of it.

Dolphins, camera, action……only God knows why they do the things they do.

Me……, I’m just grateful for the memories.

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The first time I set my eyes on these strange creatures I thought…… Wooooooooo…… Devilfish, ……because of the prominent horns.

Later I found out that they’re actually called Cow fish which I think is rather more appropriate because of the horns and also they live among the sea grass (geddit!), not sure whether they eat the sea grass though (or smoke them for that matter)…… and actually if you look closely, their mouths do look like cows’ mouth.

I realized after that…… that I should avoid going around naming stuff……leave that to the latin speaking dudes in labcoats.

I felt so lucky to be able to get this shot. These two “cow fishes” were swimming to and fro, back and forth, and I was struggling to get a good picture that includes both of them. Like most of my pictures, I honestly can’t take any credit for them. It’s mostly 99.9% luck and 0.1% skill (and even that is stretching the truth a bit). You’ll get moments when the stars suddenly falls into alignment…… and voila……

click for slideshowI first started SCUBA diving in 2001 and took my first underwater pictures in September that year. These were among my first photos taken on a single dive in Pulau Tioman, Malaysia. The dive site is call Bahara.

I’ve never done any photography before that but I wanted so much to take photos of my diving adventure, so I bought a Sony DSC-P1 because there’s an OEM underwater housing available for it, thus making it so much cheaper than buying third party housing…… but still it was one of one of my most expensive single purchase ever.

Because of the expense I said matter-of-factly to my boss that I needed to win some photography contest to make my investment worthwhile. Off course, him being the motivational expert that he is…… looked me straight in the eye and…… laughed at me……

To make a long story short, entered two online contests and this picture made finalist in Nikon.net December that year¹:-

and this picture was finalist on photo.net²:-

Talk about beginners luck .

1. I won a large print (nearly A4 sized) photo. Although the contest was for US residents only, they nevertheless shipped the prize to Malaysia. Either somebody didn’t read the contest rules or turned a blind eye to it. [back]
2. For finalist on photo.net……(drumroll)……they printed my picture in a some sort of book……that’s about it ……bah…… [back]

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Jellyfishes might not be the most interesting of subjects for underwater photography. I’ve not really encountered them much except looking at them from boats, but when you do see them up close underwater it is a pretty special experience… especially with the ever present fear of being stung .

My encounter with this one is right after entry into the water near ‘sugar wreck’ dive site in Pulau Perhentian, Malaysia.

So at this point I was struggling to descent with one hand deflating my BCD ¹ and the other fiddling with my underwater camera.

In all of the shots you can see a fish that lives symbiotically with the jellyfish.

1. BCD stands for ‘Buoyancy Control Device’ which is basically an air bladder worn like a jacket which allows the diver to increase or decrease his buoyancy by controlling the amount of air in it. [back]

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One of the main attractions of diving in Pulau Perhentian, Malaysia is the abundance of Puffer fish. The Puffer fish here are used to divers and therefore not very shy. You can very easily swim up to them.

Because they are quite used to seeing divers, it is very difficult to see them in their defensive state where they literally puffed up. So I was quite surprised when one decided to “blow up” in front of me!

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I’ve had a trip to Pulau Perhentian on May 2005. Normally I upload my pics onto Sony’s imagestation but figured out why not try flickr this time around.

Flickr is now my image sharing site of choice (for the time being at least ).

Among the highlights are :-

1. A puffer fish in full inflation
2. A strange creature which I think is a kind of nudibranch
3. A jellyfish (…well I’ve never photograph one this close before )

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I’ve no idea what this is. It looks like some sort of nudibranch swimming freely…you can see a shipwreck in the background BTW.