Joe Robinson Productions

I am a bit late in posting this but wanted to get it down before any more time goes by.  I traveled to Dumaguete, Philippines in March with a group of underwater photographers hosted by Backscatter – a purveyor of all things to underwater photographers and videographers.  We stayed at the Atlantis Dive Resort – a paradise, tucked away off the main road.  Full of wonderful lush gardens with rooms surrounding a pool, a camera room that is to die for in terms of size, layout, lighting, power strips – everything an underwater shooter could want.  No disassembling your rig on the side of the bed in a poorly lit room – not this time.  The resort was awesome – incredible food, great – GREAT dive guides, unusual 40 ft outrigger dive boats.  The diving is muck diving.  Some people may not have heard of muck diving.  It’s not pretty coral, giant sea fans, large pelagic creatures such as sharks, rays, dolphins or the like.  It is the world of silt bottom, low visibility and small, small macro creatures.  Most of these varied in size from a few inches to the size of half a pencil eraser or smaller.   A tripod is a must if you are serious about shooting these guys – especially video.  I mentioned we had great dive guides.  I swear, they were just as alien as some of the creatures we shot.  Wing-wing – our dive guide for the entire trip, would spot something ¼ of an inch long from 20 ft away, take me over to it, point at it repeatedly with his pointer, me shaking my head trying to figure out what in the world this fragment could be.  This happened over and over again.  I would finally give up, set up the tripod, zero in my macro lens, sometimes have to use my 2x macro mate wet lens to magnify it twice and voila – a creature so unusual and beautiful that I was sure I was on another world.  And I was – the world of muck diving, macro shooting, hanging on the bottom in low vis – with the payoff being the privilege of entering this shadow world.  It was a great two weeks – shared with 12 other underwater photographers/videographers who shared my sense of awe and amazement and laughter topside at getting to do this thing we all love so much.  Besides the incredible beauty of the diving – sharing this with like minded folks who are as geeky as I am was as amazing as the creatures themselves and only reminded me that it is always about the people.  Sharing with others makes this life worth living.  Living now – and this practice certainly brought me into the now – being alive at this moment and paying attention to it.  Here are some photos from that trip to Dumaguete and the creatures and a few people who call it home.

Here are some of the photos from the trip.

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Here is a short video with a few of the creatures from my first days diving.  Enjoy – stay tuned for more. . .

Select the link below – sorry the video takes a minute to load.

Lembeh First Day 16-9

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I have now been traveling for 27 hours, with a 4 hour layover in San Fransisco and a 1 1/2 hour layover in Seaoul, in the air 21 1/2 hours and have roughly 1 more hour till we land in Singapore.

Then a 9 hour layover and 4 hours to Manado and a bus ride for another couple of hours and I think a boat ride to get to Lembeh Resort. It’s a lot of time. I have edited photos, sketched out some continuing biz ideas, watched a couple of movies, eaten 4 meals, and slept 6 or 7 hours. The movies were The Cove and The End of the Line. Both excellent documentaries about some of the problems facing our oceans today. I would highly recommend both but if you have to choose, please run, don’t walk, and watch The End of the Line. You may have heard about it. Ted Danson does the narration and has been making the talk circuits lately talking about the film. It is a very, very good look at not only the problems WE ALL face but the solutions as well. It left me with more direction for my own business, including a grass roots campaign to begin asking some basic questions every time I order at a restaurant and buy fish at the supermarket. Where was this fish caught? How was it caught? Is it a sustainable species? For the answer to the last question, you can go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s website and print a wallet size guide listing the species that are threatened and those that are sustainable. What a concept. Take control myself of my choices that impact the oceans. Or you can download the app for your Iphone or Droid that will do the same thing. If we all begin asking these questions, the restaurants and supermarkets will begin adjusting their selections and we will have made a huge difference. It all begins with one voice. Maybe today that voice is mine or maybe it’s yours. What do you think?

It’s interesting. I love the oceans. I think I have made that point. It’s easy when I look at all the problems facing them to get discouraged. I can let it go as just another thing I can’t do anything about. It’s too big for me. But just doing one little thing like this – it empowers me and gives me hope and makes me want to do another small thing and another one. It snowballs.

I am in and around the ocean a lot. But I am in many ways a neophyte when it comes to understanding her beauty, power, fragility and perils facing her. So for me, these past days, weeks and months have begun a process of educating myself. Not taking things for granted but trying to discover facts and resources that can help me be a better steward.

We have landed and I am in the transit hotel in Singapore – what a great idea – don’t have to leave the concourse and they rent rooms by 6 hour blocks. Fresh shower, brush my teeth – yuck – I needed that !! Some sleep and I’ll post the blog when I get up before I head to Manado. For now, it’s sleep and getting ready for the next leg of the journey.

Welcome to my blog.  Wasn’t long ago I didn’t know how to spell blog.  I have been working hard on my videos, photos and getting my website up and functional – thanks to the help of a few gifted people.  And the website went live today just in time for me to leave.   I will be gone for 5 1/2 weeks and be in the warm waters of Indonesia as the colder water of southern Australia –  60-65 degrees.  This has complicated my usual tropical packing routine and it feels like I have been packing for three days. At any rate, it’s done – I leave in the morning and plan on keeping the blog updated with the events of my travels as well as some photos and video clips from under the water.

If you are new to underwater photography/videography, it is a challenge to travel.  Getting all the dive gear in is simple enough but the camera gear and supporting materials is something else.   This is what it looks like:

This is my basic photo great, including housing, strobes, arms, ports and cameras. Then it all goes into here:

and here   

and then add in the wetsuits, bcd, drysuits, and all the diving and photo accesories and a few clothes (more than the usual 3 t shirts, 2 swimming suits and flip flops — because of the cold weather in Australia) and it all comes out looking like this:

I am that guy you don’t want to be behind in the check in counter.  And I have it easy compared to some.  But it seems enough to me.

I am excited.  I will spend the next two weeks in Lembeh Straits with Berkley White and the Backscatter group of several other underwater shooters, diving and shooting 3-4 – 5 hours a day.  Awesome time I am sure.  It is supposed to be macro heaven and having returned not long ago from Dumaguete, Philippines with the Backscatter group, it should be epic.  I then journey to southern Australia and join the Howard and Michele Hall and several others aboard Rodney Fox’s boat for 20 days of videography/photography – shooting sea lions, mating cuttlefish, leafy seadragons and great white sharks – lets not forget them.   I am jazzed and hopeful of having a wonderful time, meeting a bunch of great folks and seeing some incredible sights – improving my skills and bringing back images that offer a glimpse at the beauty beneath the ocean waves.  I’ll do my best to update my blog often – although once I get on the boat in Australia, we won’t have internet or phone so it may be sparse for a couple of weeks.  Stay tuned and welcome to my blog.