Underwater shutterbug Cristina Mittermeier had an amazing experience photographing a school of Kingfish.
In a recent video uploaded to the Sony Alpha Universe YouTube channel, Mittermeier talks about diving off the Poor Knights archipelago in New Zealand.
“The island underwater is covered in kelp,” she says. “There’s a lot of life and a lot of activity, a lot of sting rays, these … whale sharks are coming in and they’re getting cleaned by other fish.”
Making images underwater is incredibly difficult, according to Mittermeier. Divers have to deal with the current and other conditions as well as their personal scuba gear. On top of that, you also have to deal with the behavior of the animals.
One of the most difficult things is controlling the light in these shoots, and since Mittermeier is a member of a mixed team where some people are doing video and she is doing photography:
“People don’t always want to dive with me. They don’t like my strobes flashing into their video. So I oftentimes dive alone, and that’s what I was doing on this day.”
Diving alone brings its own challenges and dangers, including getting dragged away by a current or the people on the dive boat not being able to see you, she says:
“I was a little nervous, and I was not really looking for any photograph in particular, but as I started ascending and getting closer to the surface, I looked down and there was a massive school of kingfish swirling beneath my fins.
“They were just mesmerizing and beautiful that I almost lost track of time. I spent about an hour diving by myself, and eventually I have to go back to the boat, get my bearings underwater and try to locate where the vessel might be waiting for me.
“By the time I came out, sure enough, SeaLegacy 1 was there, waiting for me, like they always are.”
Check out the video below.
