My Favorite Underwater Videos
Sometime around 2020 I switched from being mostly a nature photographer to being mainly a nature videographer; this had several reasons. I hadn’t gotten bored by underwater photography, but I was clearly noticing that I was repeating myself to some degree; There are only so many ways to photograph even the most intriguing, gaudily colored shrimp. And there are some photographs which are simply near-impossible to take with the equipment I have right now; Quality shots of flasher wrasses displaying in mid-water need a pair of very strong strobes, and a fast mirrorless camera, with a powerful macro lens. I’m using a single strobe now, for several reasons.
So I hadn’t completely hit a creative ceiling, but at the same time it was clear that I should try new formats; And underwater videography was the obvious choice; I had long focused on photographing marine animal behavior, and it’s very often so much better to show an instance of behavior with video than with a series of still photographs.
I do still take photographs as well by the way; a selection of recent artsy ones is here:
The Favorite Videos
But, let’s check out some videos from the last few years which are really close to my heart:
Convict Fish
This is the kind of video which I enjoy making most. Two things came together nicely: I caught footage of a very curious fish, the convict fish, which is sometimes called a convict goby or convict blenny, despite being neither a goby nor a blenny. So, the juveniles of this fish are somewhat commonly seen on the reef. But the adults are rare, and there is a really odd interaction between juveniles and adults (what exactly is going on is in the video).
The footage I got made me read up on the biology of this fascinating fish, on some really new, surprising scientific work on its ancestry; These new insights I learned were the second element of the video. I present the biology together with the footage:
Muck
This is a full-length documentary I am really happy about. “Muck diving” refers to diving in sandy areas which don’t look like much at a first sight; but in reality the sand is anything but barren or empty. The documentary shows a lot of the fishes and invertebrates which are very specifically adapted to life in the sand. I go over venoms, camouflage, hiding below the sand and symbiosis as strategies to thrive in the muck. Don’t miss this one:
Sea Cucumber Action
One of the highlights of my underwater filming during the last couple of years. Yes, one sea cucumber grazed on another one, and the grazee decided to knock the molesting cucumber off with a stream of water from its butt. I am not looking for such action, it finds me.
The Viral One
This is the video which kicked off the relative success of my YouTube channel. When I was filming a turtle, a triggerfish attacked me, I kept my cool, I swam away from the angry fish, but I kept filming, without too much shake. 3.8 million views! The triggered triggerfish, with no trigger warning given to the diver. The jokes in the comments are endless. Besides the humor, this is a really interesting example of nest defense by a fish.
Under-Appreciated
My mate Matt and I sometimes infuse the videos we make with humor. Humor can be a very good vehicle to transport knowledge. This video makes a very interesting point: It’s something which I learned from a scientific article: that the fluid dynamics of feeding for very small fishes are akin to “eating marshmallows underwater without using hands”. We tried that. I won. Still, life is hard for tiny fish:
I hope You Enjoyed These,
Best Fishes,
Klaus
