Extreme Nature; The Photography Of Bill Curtsinger Page 2
In the Antarctic Curtsinger's prime concern is to stay warm in the 28Þ water. Dry suits, sealed at the neck and cuffs, are required as well as three-finger gloves, separated for mobility to the thumb and forefinger. Since the dry suit has air, a diver is required to wear 30-40 lbs of lead to prevent floating back up and "getting glued to the underside of the ice."
Getting there is half the fun and often the diver must dynamite a hole in the ice and clear it away in order to jump in. If he or she is near a base there are huts on sleds, the huts having a large hole in the floor and a little heater to keep the hole open for the diver to drop through and return.
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All divers go down in pairs. It sounds pretty safe but Curtsinger makes it
clear that if you get into trouble you're going to have to think fast.
"Even if your dive partner is 30 ft away you may not be able to get their
attention since you really can't communicate underwater. The other diver
might be preoccupied with collecting data when suddenly my regulator stops working.
I need to make some quick decisions, the most obvious one is to swim over and
buddy breathe with my partner or to swim to the nearest hole and make an ascent.
You're pretty limited under so much ice."
Many adventures are recorded in Curtsinger's journals, his way to stay
connected and to share experiences with his son Owen. "A lot of my assignments,
especially those for National Geographic, require a real time commitment of
six or seven months and I call the collection `Traveling to Owen.'"
Photo Gear
"All of my equipment is Nikon and my film, Fujifilm Provia 100. My cameras
are in underwater housings, each with two strobes attached. With the ocean you
have to bring your own sunshine," he says, "unless you're
in clear water in a nice sunny, tropical place. Knowledge of lighting is essential!
I carry one housing, as does my assistant, and if the situation is right I can
put a couple of extra housings on the bottom. I will do that if I am doing bottom
creatures so I can have a macro lens in one camera."
Some of Curtsinger's most colorful images, though unrecognizable to most
of us, are his "beautiful drifters," the jellyfish and sponges that
cling to the depths of the ocean. They are among the strangest looking creatures
in the water, as well as the most beautiful.
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"The underwater world is a wide angle world or a macro," Curtsinger
says. "Most of my work is wide angle and I have used anything from a fisheye
lens up to 24mm. I've also used a 13mm and a 14mm and have had a housing
built around the 13mm. On occasion I use a 16mm to do a split image underwater
where you can see the surface elements as well as the scene below."
Curtsinger describes making photographs next to a 50-foot southern right whale.
"The huge flank going past me felt like an underwater freight train,"
he wrote in his book. "But I never felt endangered. The fluke of a whale
that size could kill a man," he said, "but each time the animal
approached, she lifted her tail up over my head and swam on. I took as many
frames as I could of that whale until I ran out of film. The light was perfect,
the water clear and that whale posed for my camera that morning."
Curtsinger writes, "Swimming just beneath the surface you hear the ebb
and flow of coral reef life, shrimp snapping, parrot fish crunching, and waves
swishing. You can hear the song of the humpback whales. Listen carefully."
To learn more about Bill Curtsinger, visit his website at: www.billcurtsingerphoto.com.
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