Parting Shots

Alan Larsen & Joseph Dovala · Issue 58, Jan/Feb 2011 · pp. 63–65

Products mentioned: Nikon D2X, Subal ND2 housing, Nikkor 10.5mm, Ikelite DS-125 strobes, Nikon D200, Subal ND20, Inon Z-240 strobes, Nikkor 60mm lens

Parting Shot 1 It is cold here. The subdued light further enhances the effect as I leave the region which still supports photosynthesis in the great kelps. The security of the underwater forest is now a mere shadow far above me. Few of my peers in this overcrowded planet know of this place. For a brief moment, I escape the trivial concerns of that society, and visit a world which knows another kind of existence. A place where one is immersed in the universal solvent and movement is in three dimensions. Where nutrients bathe your body and sound travels four times as fast. The pressures here are crushing but predictable. A life which has little in common with the surface world. I have reached 170 feet and all the color is gone. Monochromatic blues are all that is left. Less than ten percent of the sun’s light makes it this far, most of it has long been absorbed high up in the water column.…