[UW Photo A098] Silhouette of a Manta Ray

(Location: Manta Point, Nusa Penida Island, Bali, Indonesia)

This is a Manta Ray at famous Manta Point dive site in south of Nusa Penida island of Bali, Indonesia. Any UW photographer would try to capture a silhouette of Manta against the sun, which I too tried here.

It is not hard to find a Manta against the sun since they usually swim around casually while you can shoot from the bottom. Anyway, challenge is giving the correct light since sun rays will give excessive light to the image still underneath the fish is kept dark. This is my first attempt and tried to capture the color of the fish by eliminating the strobe slightly. I need to study more on photographing silhouettes.

This site is a promising place for Manta Rays, but it’s a place with heavy swell and very close to a massive structure of boulders propagating from the sea bed. So always photography is not the primary concern, but safety.