Chris Crumley Blog

Colette HUMEAU, wife of my French guide, Bernard BEGLIOMINI in Moorea, was modeling on a scooter (this picture) when a small mesh bag of fish parts broke. Colette stopped the scooter and was immediately engulfed by a school of small fish in a feeding frenzy on the fish parts. In another split second, a small shark blindly rushed into the frenzy and mistakenly bit Colette's right leg. Fortunately, the shark's teeth were small and just punctured the skin. But, still, there were 20-some punctures bleeding green blood that took 20-some stitches to close (red is green at depth). The front page newspaper headlines all over Tahiti the next day were "Woman bit by shark!"

Immediately after the bite, I was signaling for everyone to go to the surface and tend to Colette, but she swam to me, checked the camera, saw there were something like a dozen frames left, and signaled she wanted to stay and finish. Tough gal.

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Care to guess how many sharks were in this "school?" The ones right in front of me are going left to right; those in the background are going the other way. They are moving in a stiff current through Apataki Tehere Pass, near Rangiroa in a group of out-islands in French Polynesia (Tahiti). I saw the start, but in 30 minutes I never saw the end.

If you like being around sharks, this is a scene you won't soon forget. Unfortunately, this happens at 80-90' and all-too-soon a diver is out of time and gas. I had to thank Captain Alan Roberts for sharing so we could stay longer.

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A beautiful red anemone is in residence on the bow of the sunken Yamagiri Maru in Truk Lagoon. Red makes it something of a rarity in most parts of the world. They are also difficult, if not impossible, to light with standard underwater strobes; the red seems to record only with an available-light source and attendant slow shutter speeds. Anemonefish are not known to sit still, so this one (center right) blurs in the slow shutter.

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A young Balinese hostess stands by in one of the hidden hillside spa villas at the Elilai Spa by Mandara, overlooking the private lagoon at the Palau Pacific Resort, western shore of Arakebasang hamlet, Koror, Republic of Palau

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Being around sharks is a good thing. They are muscular, powerful and graceful to the eye; like sandpaper to the touch. These six were moving around in front of me and the largest one (7-8 feet long) headed straight towards the camera. This picture was done when she was about 12 inches in front of the dome port (very wide angle lens). A split second later she bumped the dome, decided it was not something edible and moved off looking for something softer.

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This tree on the grounds of Leeds Castle in England has a lot of texture if you get up close.

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Somehow, a big red ball (180cm Megaball) ended up in my garage and sometimes comes out to play as yard art. My favorite place is the pool (aka the "tank," "wet studio" or "wet cyc") where it just floats around the surface at the whim of a breeze. Eventually, it drops over the zero edge (infinity edge) partway into the catch basin. At dusk and early evening, with the basin and pool lights on, the graphics of it are very intriguing.

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Certain traditional villages in Yap allow visitors; Kaday Village is one. Elders talk about their culture and customs, including stone money and the Beetlenut chew. Children of the village demonstrate dance and creation of products they sell.

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The boat needed fuel yesterday, so off it went to the fuel dock and some $3.63/gallon petrol. On the way back through a no-wake zone, we still had a small wake that did some nice colorful curvy repetitious things to this dock and flowers.

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Cargo hold #1 of the San Francisco Maru, sunk in February 1944 in Truk Lagoon, Federated States of Micronesia, is loaded with mines. The mines are at about 185 feet, so I had the camera and lights prepositioned and ready to start shooting as soon as I got into the hold. This is one of half dozen frames. Next stop was the tanks on the main deck at about 165', then slowly back to the surface doing staged safety stops along the way.

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Remember what it felt like to play in the rain as a kid? This is Palau, Micronesia and it's 80F+, but the afternoon rainshower, some wind and a fast-moving boat make for a chilly and bumpy ride. Think they care!?

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Sometimes the lines blur between personal work and work-work. The Client and Creative Director for this ad campaign were in California so we cast it by eMail between coasts, the female talent came fresh from work in Barcelona and Madrid, the CD flew to Virginia for the shoot, the crew (assistant/makeup/styling) worked together like joined twins. The client liked the visuals and the ads were productive. Nice.

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Scouting a location for an upcoming project, I saw this 12-inch long gasoline-powered model car speeding around a grassy oval in the park guided by radio remote control. The grass looked perfect for a panning slow shutter blur.

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