Many of the residents of the underwater world are highly camouflaged. Their ability to blend into their surroundings protects them from predators and facilitates their own efficiency as ambush predators. Some of these creatures are very small, and therefore difficult to discern, but some are just darn good at mimicking their backgrounds. Here are some tips for finding these creatures and effectively photographing them once you do.

Listen to the Dive Briefing

Experts at camouflage, frogfish are often mistaken for clumps of sponges.

Of course, if you want to get back to the boat safely, you should always pay attention to the dive briefing to find out which way the current is running, or whether you should keep the wall on your right or left. But for photographers, dive briefings can also offer crucial local knowledge about where to find specific fish and creatures. The local staff dive these reefs every day and can be an incredible resource when deciding what to shoot and how to find your subjects under water.

Pay attention to where they say things might be, or better yet, dive with them and let them show you. I’m not sure I’d have a frogfish photo yet without some divemaster somewhere showing me where they live. Once they point them out, I always think "Duh! I could have found that," although I probably would have swum right by while chasing something bigger. Then there are the pygmy seahorses, which are so small that even when they are pointed out, I have to squint and wonder how they were ever discovered in the first place. Amid the color and distraction of the tropical coral reef, small and fascinating things are often overlooked, and we should be tremendously appreciative of those who already know where they are and who are willing to share their knowledge.

Understand the Habitat

More often, you have to find your own subjects to shoot. To do so requires some knowledge of marine life behavior and where things live. Photographers like Roger Steene and Paul Humann have encyclopedic knowledge of the environments that might host specific critters. They look in the sand for flame dartfish or shrimp/goby combos. They look in the anus of a sea cucumber for a particular fish that might live there. They know where the cleaning stations are and realize they can capture behaviors there that might be significant on film. Finding a tiny tunnel in the sand bottom, they know a yellowhead jawfish might eventually emerge. Their extensive education and experience in marine biology gives them a huge advantage in locating subjects to photograph, and their photographic skill brings these compositions to life. Their portfolios of the bizarre and unlikely life forms found on the reef are inspirational, particularly when you consider the massive time commitment--the sheer number of underwater hours--that are necessary to accumulate such an archive.

Cryptic creatures require an even more intimate understanding of their habits and environment because they are not obvious at a glance. A branch of soft coral may host a coral crab, but the crab so closely mimics the sclerites embedded in the tissue mass that it is virtually invisible until it moves. Along with an understanding of the habitat and the creatures that live there, an underwater photographer must learn to wait and watch, knowing something unusual may be revealed. Or not.

Enhance Your Vision

Unless you can see well under water, the small and visually confusing creatures of the reef will remain hidden. Divers with 20/20 vision may not need any enhancement, but for the rest of us a prescription mask or at least a set of adhesive close-up diopters in the corner of the mask will help. I can see well in the distance, but I wear reading glasses topside. That same optical correction, or greater, is useful when I am scouring a soft coral branch to find camouflaged subjects. It’s also helpful when reading the small type on the menu of my digital camera. Shedding some light on the subject (either by means of a built-in model light like on the Ikelite DS125 strobe, or an external spotting light) can be an extremely useful visual aid.

Choose the Right Optical Tool

Cryptic subjects are often small or skittish--or both. It helps to have a lens that will fill the frame with the subject from a distance, without intruding into the animal’s "field of flight." In the old Nikonos days, most of the cryptic macro subjects recorded were pretty inanimate. After all, only an immobile, extremely slow or completely fearless creature would allow itself to be framed by the wands of a 1:1 extension tube. The 105mm Micro-Nikkor then emerged as the go-to lens for this task because it allowed full life-size (1:1) macro from 12.2 inches away. That meant you could get a tight headshot of a crocodilefish from three feet away, and then move in to a foot away and focus on just the eye. These continuously focusing macro telephotos are so efficient that they are justification enough for using a housed single-lens-reflex camera, either film or digital, for underwater imaging.

To get even tighter requires the use of some supermacro tool, such as an external diopter like Backscatter’s MacroMate (which can be added or removed from the port under water) or a threaded diopter added directly to the lens inside the housing. Of course, with that solution you’d be forced to shoot 1:1 or greater magnifications for the entire dive. If the entire dive is going to be devoted to capturing an ultra-small critter like a pygmy seahorse, this is a fine solution.

Use Negative Space to Enhance Composition

Cryptic creatures are typically difficult to discern from their backgrounds--after all, that’s what they do for a living. Arranging the composition so that the subject is in sharp focus and the background goes soft, or shooting at a hard upward angle to separate the subject from the background might be the best way to show the animal at a glance. In instances where the point of the photo is to show the effective camouflage of the subject, visual confusion works favorably. But how many times can you really stop in the middle of a slide show and say, "Here’s a picture of a stonefish. You can’t see it, but trust me, it’s there and this is a really good picture of it."

Avoid the Photo Frenzy

While this advice isn’t limited to photography of cryptic creatures, it’s certainly a relevant point. If you swim by a photographer shooting something indiscernible (but obviously interesting), you’ll be tempted to swim closer, look over his shoulder, belch a few bubbles, stir up a bit of sand or, worse, bump the photographer out of the way once you "discover" the fascinating little creature you just can’t live without photographing. Don’t. It’s bad form, and it’s counterproductive.

The way I see it, a photographer owns a subject until he abdicates it willingly. Of course, the photographer should be sensitive about flashing his strobe too many times in a row if the creature is sensitive to this intrusion. The photographer should also be courteous to another shooter waiting patiently and, when feasible, invite that shooter to share the discovery. But while the photographer is concentrating on the composition or working the tiny depth of field that supermacro demands, other divers should avoid creating distractions.