The last time we visited Los Islotes in Baja California’s Sea of Cortez we had a great day photographing sea lions and moving through the clouds of sardines that were hugging the island. The school of fish extended about 400m around the inside of the island and were very shallow, mostly in the 10 – 25 fsw range. The sealions were not feeding that day mostly playing around and protecting their turf. It’s exhilarating to see the big bulls swimming by, barking and calling out. If they think you are too close to the harem they let you know with a few warning swim-bys, followed by barking and finally a charge (that’s the time to leave, they will bite you).

I like watching the sardine clouds slowly move away as predators and divers approach them. Below is an image were I was trying to show the ballooning of the school as a snapper moved slowly into the school. There’s a certain distance that they allow things to approach. Hope you get the idea from the photo.

The second, lower image is fairly shallow showing sardines flowing under the surface with the island in the background.

We were on the Solmar V out of Cabo San Lucas and enjoyed the experience. I have some other images from the same trip here showing some of the creatures we got to interact with. All our dives here were quite shallow so we were able to stay underwater for a long time, we logged almost 6hrs for the one day through 4 dives.

Taken with a Nikon D200, Tokina 10-17mm in an Ikelite housing with 8″ dome and DS-125 strobes.
Processed with Photoshop CS5.

I always enjoying spending time with turtles and I marvel at their ability to survive in the modern world where so much is set up to drive them to extinction. I photographed this green turtle (Chelonia mydas) in the Philippines, he’s an example of their ability to adapt. We could find him feeding on a patch of sea grass most afternoons. Sitting in the middle of small harbor this was one of the only places in the area he could feed and he had learnt to avoid the boats, lines and other debris that had be tossed into the water. My wife and I spent about 75 minutes following him around the area while he created his own sand-storm as he moved across the seagrass. In this image we are in about 12ft of water. Green turtles are listed by CITES as endangered and are protected in most countries but even so they are under huge pressure as their nesting beaches are destroyed, their eggs are harvested and the oceans become more polluted. I hope that future generations are able to see and enjoy the company of these ocean travelers.

© Jon Bertsch

Taken with a Nikon D200, Tokina 10-17mm in an Ikelite housing with 8″ dome and DS-125 strobes.
Processed with Photoshop CS5.

I have posted a short review of the new Nikon 70-200 ED VRII 2.8G zoom lens with some impresssions and images.

This image of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris was taken with the Nikon 70-200mm lens.

We were camping a few hours north of Reykjavik, in Stykkisholmur, the ferry terminal to the Northwestern Fjords. I got up early on a misty, foggy morning to do a little exploration in the local area. The clouds were grey and heavy and there was not much hope for any light. But as I was exploring Helgafell (this hill is mentioned in the Sagas as an entrance to Valhalla) the sun broke through in the far distance and lit up these hills on the Snaefellsnes Peninsula for a few minutes.

© Jon Bertsch

Taken with a Nikon D200, Tamron 70-210mm. Processed with Photomatix Pro and Photoshop CS5.

Notre Dame was built from around 1163 to 1290 and parts of the rose windows date from that time. They are a magnificent site as you visit the ancient cathedral and it is amazing to think these have managed to survive so many years. I found a reasonably quiet area and set up for some long exposures of 2-8 seconds, but it was pretty hard to get an unrestricted view with all the visitors passing by. In the end I used a single exposure as the basis for an image and selected several different RAW exposures to use for a HDR image. Light was hitting the vaulted ceiling of the transept from the rose window and from several windows to the left and right of the image, the longish exposure helped burn some of the light into the sand coloured limestone that is used for buildings all over Paris.

Iceland is home to some of the best volcanic spots in the World. Stay on the boardwalks and don’t go wandering around though – nearly every year someone ignores the signs and gets into trouble. I wanted to show the steam with the volcanic debris and ash surrounding the boardwalk (without any people) to give a sense of the sparseness and color these areas have. The stream running through the area was boiling hot as well.

© Jon Bertsch

Taken with a Nikon D200, 17-55mm @ 17mm. Processed with Photomatix Pro and Photoshop CS5.

After a fun week in Paris visiting the museums and monuments I’m catching up on my images and posting a few items here and on Flickr. Paris has so much energy and life, a different beast from the cities of California. I took this image of a cafe with the iconic Eiffel Tower in the background on our last night.

I was up at Salt Point earlier this month and managed to get a few hours of hiking and photography in. Salt Point is known for the wonderful tufoni structures that can be found around the park. I found this interesting grouping while hiking along the coast. The original raw file was processed with Silver efEX pro. Enjoy.

Tufoni – ©Jon Bertsch

Details: Nikon D200, Tokina 12-24mm.