A flash evenly illuminates the scene. However, the lighting is to broad to isolate the subject and make it stand out. With the use of a snoot, the light beam of the flash is narrowed. Using pipe fittings, a reduction in the light beam is achieved. Small pieces of black straws (unfinished) further concentrate the light beam.

A Snoot for my Underwater Flash

 It’s the light that makes a photograph. The principle also applies to underwater photography. Sunlight penetrates water. However, only twenty…
The wreck of the tugboat El Peñon sits on the ground in 32 metres depth in Tabaiba, Tenerife.

The Wreck of the Peñón

 Wreck diving is fascinating in many ways: there’s the diving aspect, big underwater shapes are interesting to photograph, and last…
A hermit crab carries the shell of a sea snail.

Hermit Crabs, The Home Swapping Club

 Hermit crabs are crustaceans that scavenge and inhabit the shells of molluscs, most often sea snails. Their abdomen is soft…
A blenny fish peeks out of a bottle immersed at the bottom of the harbour of La Restinga, El Hierro, Spain. Blenniidae have characteristic faces.

Blenny in a Bottle

 Blenny are small fish with characteristic faces with large eyes and mouths, some of them have antlers (cirri). Only a…
Comb jellies (ctenophora) are gelatinous animals able to swim using cilia arranged in rows along their bodies. The complex animals have muscle tissue, and nervous and digestive systems. Most ctenophores are bioluminescent. In addition, there is a rainbow effect at the comb rows caused by the scattering of light. This Leucothea multicornis was photographed in about 5 metres depth at the Serra de Tramuntana, Mallorca.

Comb Jellies, Beautiful Aliens of the Oceans

 Comb jellies, or ctenophora, are marine animals with gelatinous bodies. When they slowly move through the water, the scattering of…
El Bajon is an underwater mountain near the fishing village of La Restinga in El Hierro. The steep summits rise from a hundred metres depth almost to the ocean surface. The currents support an abundant marine life with large dusky groupers, barracuda, greater amberjacks, and sometimes whale sharks and manta rays.

Diving on the Volcano: El Bajón

 El Bajón is an underwater mountain at the southern tip of El Hierro, the island that once was the end…
Black moray eel (Muraena augusti) with large white eyes, El Hierro. Moray eels actively pump water in and out of their open mouths which is often mistaken as threatening. They have excellent sense of smell.

Marine Life in El Hierro (Part 2)

 This is the second article about scuba diving and marine life in El Hierro. The waters around La Restinga are…
A dusky grouper (Epinephelus marginatus) curiously approaches. Dusky groupers can grow up to 1.5 metres length and live over several decades. They are an endangered species due to overfishing.

Marine Life in El Hierro (Part 1)

 El Hierro sits on a ridge on the 3’500-metre-deep seabed, making it a dive spot with rich biodiversity. As marine…
Sailing from North Africa, first settlers arrived in El Hierro about five hundred years BC. Portuguese explorers landed in 1341 and found a stone age culture that had ended several thousand years earlier on the continents. In 1405, Jean de Béthencourt conquered the island for Spain and captured the native Bimbaches. In 1482, Portuguese Diogo Cão was the first European to sail beyond the West African Cape Bojador and the Canary Islands: he went as far as to the mouth of the river Congo. Later in 1493, Christopher Columbus fueled up his supplies on his second sailing to the Americas.

El Hierro, the Edge of the Old World

 El Hierro once was the edge of the known world. The most western point of the Old World remained the…