My Shot

Shane Wasik · Issue 102, May/Jun 2018 · pp. 60

Products mentioned: Nikon D7100, Aquatica Housing, Sea&Sea DS1 Strobes, 60mm Nikkor Lens, Orcalight

For the last 18 months we’ve been experimenting with pelagic black water diving. Essentially this is night diving above incredibly deep water using big lights to attract potential abyssal plankton or larger nocturnal feeding species as subjects! My understanding is that this type of diving and underwater photography started, or perhaps is best known in Hawaii out in the Pacific. We started our own methods using 25000 lumen British made Orcalight technology, where we hang this light source from the boat in the deep trenches off the Scottish west coast. The hydrography here is perfect with the plummeting seabed carved out from glacier action and the nearby Atlantic powering a vast food web. This ranges from tiny plankton to pelagic fish and megafauna such as whales and sharks. So we have a potentially wide ranging target list including the possibilities of attracting some interesting stuff…