Land of Sun and Coconuts final episode

September 2016 final report back from Fiona Ayerst Underwater Photography Internship run in conjunction with Guinjata Dive Centre, Inhambane Mozambique; Africa Media and Oceans Campus. 

By Ari Robinson

From amazing macro, mantas, turtles, schools of devil rays, close encounters with everything from humpback whales to whale sharks- this is what Mozambique delivered in September 2016... 

The last two weeks of this program have been more than amazing. The ocean gave us gifts that we will never forget.

The wide angle lessons started and everybody had this good energy and vibe. All the interns where excited to try this settings for the first time so they put in a lot of effort and paid attention to understand how to take good shots. The first lesson was at the swimming pool and they practiced with models, some of the interns were very creative and came up with artistic interpretations and ideas for their pictures.

After the pool session they understood strobe positioning, how close you have to be to the subject and how to shoot objects in movement so they where ready to jump to the ocean to find some amazing megafauna! 

We all agreed that life at Guinjata was like the best dream ever, for us all;  whenever we are not diving we exercise, play beach volleyball, climb the sand dunes, surf, go swimming, watch movies on the big outside screen, bake birthday cakes, organise card games on the weekends like Mexican Kings and learn photography at the same time. For me this is the best way to live life- surrounded with the perfect life adventure and amazing people.

We dove all week at Manta Point, Extasy reef, Green Tree and Pandaine express. All these reefs are deep and we were lucky to find amazing marine life like friendly potato bass, loggerhead turtles, devil rays at our safety stops, beautiful schools of fish, huge stingrays and all this with great visibility.

We also had the chance to do a night dive which was a lot of fun, we found many weird creatures, a green turtle sleeping on a cave and the best part is that we danced with our lights off surrounded by the bioluminescence of the plankton.

The best part was yet to come when we got ready to do our first ocean safari. We asked the skipper Armando to go wherever he wanted to go because we trusted him and he said "ok I will find something nice for you". We were sailing for about 20 minutes when in the distance I saw a couple of whales breaching so we went there to watch the show but when we arrived they were gone. 2 minutes later we saw a huge whale with her baby, we could tell that it was newly born as the colour of the skin was white and clean. We approached slowly and we saw that they were not moving a lot so Armando kept his distance but told us to get slowly in to the water without making any noise, to see if the whales would move towards us at all

We couldn't see anything because we had been dropped far away from the pair but then we saw that they were coming directly towards us. We started swimming away from them, but they were still pretty close and some were able to take a shot before we got out of the water. 

This is my favourite picture which captured the best moment of that day, good job Kristin :)

You can believe how happy everybody was. And the next day we were even happier when we came back from our dive and we heard on the radio that the skipper saw a whale shark so we jumped on board and went to find it. It was about 10 meters long and really beautiful, we had to swim hard to keep up with it but it was worth it! We couldn't believe how lucky we were to have seen two such charismatic animals in such a short time- and all after the had brushed up on our wide angle skills. It was perfect timing.

On our last ocean safari we went to coral gardens, a beautiful shallow area full of life, perfect to play with the natural sunlight and some free diving models. 

On the way to the dive shop we swam with about 20 dolphins that were playing in the waves and we were thinking that this was one of the best weeks of our lives!

The last days of the program we spent celebrating life and friendship, sharing the best pictures of the month and making plans to meet again somewhere else in the world. 

Thank you all that made this a unique experience that without a doubt I will never forget. 

Thank you Fiona Ayerst Underwater Photography, Africa Media and Guinjata Dive Centre for this opportunity.

You can see the wide angle gallery from our interns here 

MOZAMBIQUE

September report back from Fiona Ayerst Underwater Photography Internship run in conjunction with Guinjata Dive Centre, Inhambane Mozambique;  Africa Media and Oceans Campus. 


By Ari Robinson

From amazing macro, mantas, turtles, schools of devil rays, close encounters with humpback whales to whale sharks- this is what Mozambique has been giving our interns this month... 

This month we have 7 interns joining us in Guinjata Bay; Kristen, May, Emmett, Nikki, Megan, Rich and Leena. This month I'm even happier because two of my very good friends are coming to take the internship with us, Kristen and May; Kristen was born in South Korea and was adopted when she was 4 years old by a lovely American family and May is from Myanmar (a country next to Thailand, like she says). 

The other  5 interns became our friends too and since the beginning of this month we have felt a strong connection with them. Emmett is from Ireland, Nikki hails from Scotland, Megan from the States, Rich from England and Leena from Kenya. I can only describe them as an amazing bunch of people from all over the world that couldn't wait to see the underwater beauty of Mozambique!

Pepe started with the photography lessons as soon as everybody arrived. Most of the interns hadn't used a dSLR beforehand, so they played with the settings by taking pictures around the tropical gardens to get to know their equipment.

They learned how to set up the cameras into the housings and  prepare everything for their first pool session with macro settings.

We went to our cultural tour the first week of the program, we visited a local family where they received us with delicious local dishes like matapa (a traditional dish made of the cassava leaf mixed with coconut and cashew nuts), fresh coconuts and the kids toasted some cashew nuts for us.

The kids love to pose for our pictures so this is excellent practice to improve our students photography skills. Kristy brought some presents for them and they got happier than they where before so they danced and posed for us even more!

After the pool practice the interns felt ready to go and capture real subjects in the ocean, so they did their first local dive called Caves, a perfect shallow dive full of macro creatures.

The first dives with the camera they struggled more than they had in the pool as there was a lot of surge underwater and this made taking pictures more of a challenge. But they didn't give up and kept practicing every day and correcting their mistakes after looking at their pictures every afternoon.
The conditions improved and we had perfect days with almost no current. We also made a trip to the estuary and found  creatures in the muddy bottom. The estuary is like a nursery area as there were mini frogfish and lots of other juveniles waiting to get big enough to venture out into the big ocean.

At the end of the two weeks training with macro settings the interns managed to improve their shots dramatically, with perfect composition and exposure, even using their strobes perfectly.

Here is the first macro gallery from our interns this September.

 


 


 

We finished two weeks feeling accomplished with Macro photography and it was time to move on to bigger things. The final two weeks were looming fast and wide angle was beckoning and boy did this come at a good time- I'll be sharing the opportunities we have had with some of the larger creatures we saw, a little later this week.

Ari Robinson
Field Specialist
Fiona Ayerst Underwater Photography 

Mozambique- land of sun and coconuts 

Part 2 

August report back from Fiona Ayerst Underwater Photography Internship run in conjunction with Guinjata Dive Centre, Inhambane Mozambique and Africa Media. 

By Ari Robinson

I thought this program just couldn't get better but this last two weeks have been more than amazing. 

At the beginning of the week we went on a cultural tour to the house of one of the dive centre staff. His name is Franky and he has 3 kids with one of his wives :D yes, polygamy is the norm in Moz.Franky he has 4 more kids with another wife. We got there and immediately all the kids from all around came to climb all over the vehicle to say hi and they welcomed us with huge smiles. 

Franky took us to his house, we met his mom and his wives and we played with the kids, they danced and sang for us (see video below) and they happily posed for all our pictures. 

Frankie's wife made some Matapa for us, a traditional Mozambican dish made from leaves, nuts and coconut milk, this was delicious! One of the kids also climbed a palm tree to get us coconuts with fresh water and crunchy meat. We thought that was it with the delicious food but Franky brought cashew nuts and toasted them on a fire next to us. A true traditional Mozambican experience. 

We dove all week, the students learned about wide angle Photography and took some stunning shots of the marine life of Guinjata. We had one potato bass encounters that came so close to us that one of them even kissed Pepe! The mantas came back to Manta point with crazy amounts of fish everywhere and the conditions were perfect, good visibility and almost no current. The only dive site where we have current is called Pandaine express and we love it because you don't have to swim at all. You just drift enjoying the show as the current takes you along. We usually see many loggerhead and  hawksbill turtles and different kind of rays on that dive site. On one dive we counted more than 20 devil rays on our safety stop, it was amazing! These are some of the pictures from the students taken the first week of training. 

At the beginning they struggle a lot with the strobe positioning and the most hated thing for underwater photographers, the horrible BACK SCATTER! For the non- photographers reading this, the definition of backscatter are particles floating in the water that get lit up by the flash when they are not in the right position creating awful spots on the picture. After a lot of practice, getting over frustrations and studying their pictures with Pepe after the sessions, they managed to take mind blowing pictures! We really admire our students, because some of them had never used a camera before. 

During the week we did a pool photo session with models for the students; Pepe; J3 the dive master from the dive centre and I, were the "models", we thought modelling was an easy job but now we have more respect for underwater models. It's not easy to look pretty while you hold your breath and open your eyes not really knowing where the camera is going to be, but at the end our talented interns made us look pretty enough :)

We did some more fun dives on the weekend and we organised a trip on a luxury catamaran with the interns and all the volunteers of Love the Oceans. We sailed around the estuary and stopped on a beautiful island where we had water sports included, we did some skiing, surf board and tubbing and we ate burgers and had pina colada cocktails next to the pool, what a weekend! 

On Monday we dove in the morning, we went to Extacy reef and later we played in the waves to practice more wide angle photos. It was so much fun and we could hear the whales singing every time we put our head underwater. This is just magic for everyone. The pictures turned out well as you can see here and it was good practice for our ocean safari that we did the next day. 

There was bad weather coming and the dives were cancelled so we went to the local school to help the volunteers from Love the Oceans to paint and to play with the kids. It feels amazing to help to create a better world and to spend some time with the most amazing kids I've ever met. They live a simple life where they create their own toys and use their imagination to have fun, just the way childhood should be.

We went to the ocean safari next day and since the beginning we were so lucky because we saw a leatherback turtle and a shark at the surface. We played with a pod of dolphins for about 10 minutes and we swam with a humpback whale and her baby! This was the best day of our lives for many of us, we were screaming and dancing on the boat on the way back. 

As all the good things come to an end, the first month in Mozambique was over. I couldn't believe how fast it went. All our interns left very satisfied with a very good level of underwater photography and amazing pictures to show to everybody.                                                                              

And I am still thinking that this is a dream I don't want to wake up. I will still be enjoying one more month in this beautiful paradise and I just know it's going to be magical.

Wait for my next report from the land of sun and coconuts... and if you are keen to have as much fun as we are - take a look here for our 2017 season on  the underwater photo internship

Ariane Robinson 

5 September 2016

July

Here is my July report back from Fiona Ayerst Underwater Photography student Underwater Photography Internship run in conjunction with Blue Wilderness Shark Adventures and Africa Media. by Ari Robinson

This month is a little bit more quiet than our June program. We have one lucky intern after a few last minute cancellations. Meet Emily Keohane, she is from the UK and is studying photo-journalism at college. Emily is very knowledgeable, creative, and loves to travel.

Emily on her trip to Nepal

I have a very good feeling about Emily. I can see that she wants to learn a lot and to make the most of the course. She has a lot of stories about her travels and very beautiful pictures, so I can't wait to see her underwater photography. Emily did her open water certification two years ago in Madagascar and she hasn't been diving since then. She has only ten logged dives and she is a little nervous about it. We always want our interns to feel comfortable before going to the ocean so I did a refresher course with her at the pool, to remind her about the basics of diving.  All her skills were comfortably performed, she had no problem at all. However, the pool was at 13 degrees. In South Africa the term to describe how this feels is 'eish' and yes, it was pretty icy!  After that, the ocean felt nice and warm. 

I didn't write about this in the last blog but now I really must tell you how wild it is to go diving in Africa. Let's begin with the launch of the boat. The first impression you get is that people living in Africa must be crazy.  To begin with, we pushed the boat from the beach all the way into the ocean , then, when it is deep enough, the skipper asks us to jump in. It's difficult to do this gracefully and also to help others, by pushing their butts or pulling arms and legs while the waves are moving the boat up and down. There's nothing graceful about it, to be fair !

Preparing to launch   

When everybody is aboard, we secure ourselves with feet straps; put lifejackets on; hold and be alert because once the skipper finds a gap between the waves, he speeds up and jump the waves as fast as he can. This is the most exciting moment, because you literally fly up in the sky for a few seconds. I love this moment, the best. After passing the waves we usually have a relaxing ride to the dive site. Emily really enjoyed her first launch, even though it was a very windy day with lots of waves.

We all jumped into the water and started to descend, on the way down Emily couldn't equalise her ear, we tried for more that 10 minutes but it was impossible for her to go deeper than 4 meters and very painful so she  sadly but responsibly decided to get back on the boat.

Tidal pool just 2 meters deep

Emily playing hide and seek with the octopus

We took her to the doctor and he gave her the ok to go to the tidal pool as it is just two meters deep. There are many tiny creatures there and no current, so it is perfect to practice macro shots. Emily was desperate to go into the water again even though her ear wasn't perfect because she wanted to try the camera for the first time underwater. We spent about 2 hours finding nudibranchs, moray eels, crabs, sea urchins, tons of tiny fish and even an octopus hiding and we had a lot of fun. On her first try with the camera Emily's buoyancy was upside down, she was rolling over and didn't have any control of her body. After getting over her frustrations and learning from her mistakes, on day two we came back to the tidal pool and she was  in control. She understood how important is to use her lungs while diving and which is the better position to take picture from. This is a learning process and we were really impressed on how much she improved from one day to the next. On day two she created this picture of an octopus hiding. It is an amazing picture and I couldn't wait to see more of her pictures after that.

The next day we were planing to go diving but Emily's ear wasn't feeling good at all so we went to a different doctor to get a second opinion. The doctor said "it wasn't a happy ear". She had to be out of the water for a while. You can imagine how sad we all were about this but then we realised that we were in Africa and there are loads of things to do we starting looking for fun activities to do. We arranged to visit a game reserve called Lake Eland. The landscape is astonishing and we were able to see zebra, impala, wildebeest, giraffe and the awe-inspiring Oribi Gorge canyon.

Oribi Gorge canyon

Later we went for a ride on the highest swing of the world- the Oribi Gorge canyon swing. This is located on the top of Lehrs falls. The swing into the depths  of the gorge is an arc of 100 meters and it takes only one jump. The ride doesn't last more than a minute but it gives you the most terrifying thrill. I think that this location is one of the most spectacular sights you can visit in South Africa. We would do it again in a 'screaming' heartbeat.
     

 

After two doctor appointments and almost two weeks out of the water, we did Emily's first dive of the program in the ocean. After she passed the four first meters without any pain we knew she was going to be able to go down and were all so relieved! On that dive we saw more than ten "raggies", many species of nudibranches, a huge green turtle and we heard whales singing for the entire dive. This is what I call a perfect welcome dive.

We kept diving for the next weeks and little by little Emily became a better diver and a better underwater photographer. She decided to do her advanced course so we did a deep dive adventure, drift diving, a wreck dive, navigation skills and the most important speciality on this program, peak performance buoyancy.

After practicing some skills and putting in practice all the lectures and tips,Emily was very comfortable underwater and we could see  how much she improved just by looking at her  incredible pictures.

The time went super fast after diving two times a day on the last weeks. The ocean gave us amazing dives with very pleasant conditions and loads of biodiversity.


On the last weeks Emily learned wide angle photography and had a lot of close shark encounters, turtles, a friendly potato bass and many ragged tooth sharks posing for her camera so it was easier for her to take beautiful of willing models.
By the end of the Underwater Photography Internship, Emily left as an experienced diver and a wonderful underwater photographer. Pepe and I were so proud that she didn't quit the first time and kept trying. Both of us view Emily as a true warrior who will be very successful in everything that she wants to do.
We said goodbye to Emily and the new friends we made this past two months in South Africa with a traditional braai, we will be forever thankful for everything they did for us and for the opportunity that Fiona Ayerst; Fiona Ayerst Underwater Photography and Africa Media are giving us to be part of this program and being in Africa.

Here are some of my favourite pictures from the program. I will miss South Africa so much!

Next adventure... Mozambique! We are all packed and ready to go. Wait for my next report from this paradise.

to join us go to this website for more information http://www.africa-media.org/internship/underwater-photography-training-program/

Ariane Robinson 

Africa Media and Fiona Ayerst Underwater Photography Field Specialist