[audience applause]
I used to be afraid of the ocean.
Because to me, the ocean was dark, and the animals were dangerous.
The waves and currents are also dangerous, it can take us anywhere.
After I got my license, I started diving in several places.
Then, I realized that the underwater world was beautiful.
I started bringing my camera with me, and started taking pictures.
I went around to several places.
I think photos are the most accurate, easiest tool, for us to introduce beauty of a place to many people.
Because of that, I started taking underwater photography, seriously.
There are two types of underwater photography.
The first one is "wide angle" or underwater panoramic scenes.
The second one is called "macro" or
Photos about really small sea animals.
Here’s an example of a "macro" photo.
This is a photo of a Frog Fish. To wait for him to open his mouth took tens of minutes.
Once he does open his mouth, it occurs less than one minute.
So, it was very lucky that I got this.
And then, you recognize this, Yes? Nemo right?
To be exact, “Clown Fish”. If you pay attention, there are two tiny eyes coming out of his mouth.
Those are "isopods" or let’s just call them ticks, that lives in the mouth and feeds from the tongue of the Nemo.
Eventually, it can replace the function of the Clowns Fish’s tongue.
This next photo, I was lucky,
I saw a baby crab, and he was very small.
If you notice, he’s enjoying his supper.
In its hands, he holds a fish larva, a baby fish that hasn’t developed fins.
Now, this picture, I almost threw out, because it wasn’t focused.
But when I saw it on the big screen,
Apparently in the eyes of this Pontohi – Pontohi is very small in size, about 1.5 centimeters,
There was a shrimp, which is not obvious with the naked eye.
It sticks there and the shape is a bit odd.
The same with this photo, I almost threw it out, because it was so-so.
There are plenty of photos like this.
But it turns out, it’s quite special because again there is an isopod, or the tick, attached to one of the tentacles of the jellyfish.
Now, underwater photography, particularly macro photography started from the need to identify animals.
So, when people take pictures, usually
They want the object to be focused from front to back.
If you understand photography, this means that he would need to slightly open the aperture.
And the result is a dark background.
So, that is what usually happens in most of underwater photographs.
For myself, I prefer to take pictures with very short focus isolation.
For example, with the same object, I only capture the eye.
Under water, we are always moving because the water never stops.
These are one of the difficulties to take these kinds of pictures.
But for me, the lucky thing is, if we take a picture with bigger opening of the aperture,
The ambience light or the background of the animal is still visible.
If the previous picture is dark black, this one is green.
Or for example this one. \
Recently, I've discovered that my pictures are more easily received by non-divers, or people that are not familiar with the underwater world.
Its probably because
The backgrounds that are quite bright, appeals to people that like me are afraid of the darkness of the ocean.
But there are certain objects that are more contrasted and therefore looks good,
if we use an aperture with a small opening.
This is Pygmy Bargibanti, Pygmy Seahorse, the size is also around 1.5 - 2 centimeters.
To take this picture takes a long time. Because he doesn’t stand still, so we have to wait patiently.
There are animals that no matter what you do with it is still ugly.
[audience laugh]
So, what can you do?
Now friends, one of the most interesting things about underwater life is the animals’ activities.
For example, how they eat.
Or how they perform their reproduction process.
That’s the scientific term.
[audience laugh]
One of the animals that are easy to find when they are reproducing,
Are sea animals known as Nudibranches.
I’m not going to go in details,
But the way most of them reproduce, is by simply doing a gesture similar to a high five, or shaking hands.
[audience laugh]
Luckily, for human beings, that’s not enough.
[audience]
Ok.
For this next picture,
I see two Nudibranches that are doing their duties.
I was taking my time taking the picture, until eventually I saw one of them,
Appeared to be giving me the middle finger, I think he’s annoyed by me.
[audience laugh]
You can see it, right?
But no, no, its not a middle fionger, but
It is a parasite egg, attached to one of the Nudibranches.
This one is also quite interesting, again a Nudibranch, and again with the same activity.
It usually can take from minutes up to days.
Fortunately this was just in a couple of minutes, so I waited.
Finally, they were done doing it,
And the one starts to move on,
You can see the reproductive organ, right there,
But the friend back there, wasn’t ready to let it go.
His mouth kept on pouting,
Moments later, after I waited,
Apparently, it just needed one last kiss
[audience laugh and applause]
After that, maybe it still wanted some, but the friend leaves nonetheless.
Another thing that happened, at the end of a diving trip, after being quite a while underwater,
I stopped and saw a Flabellina Nudibranch that was quite small.
It seemed very busy, cleaning with this stick, let’s say it’s a coral,
And when it was doing that,
It’s about 1.5 centimeters,
I saw at the back of my camera,
It was busy laying eggs.
If you take a look, the stomach is open,
And then, it circles the its eggs to the coral.
Maybe you can see more clearly here. The one with lots of dots are the eggs.
OK, now, as an underwater photographer,
I have the fortune of travelling a lot in small groups to dive.
And recently, my friends and I made a diving lifestyle magazine,
That had the objective of being read by many people, and therefore it is free.
Our mission, is to introduce the underwater world, to a lot of people.
With an opportunity like this, I am very blessed to be able to see lots of marine animals.
Without many people around, I have my underwater private moments.
This is a whale shark.
Apparently, because it was so interesting, his friend is waiting in the back.
queueing.
So, a whale shark is a type of shark.
The biggest fish in the sea. By the way, whales are not fish.
Later we’ll have a biology lesson.
Ok, so whale shark is the biggest shark.
It can reach up to 14 meters, and is very tame.
Ok
Friends from Divemag are the first magazine that covered the existence of whale sharks in Nabire, Papua.
People really want to see them because they are huge and tame.
They would pay a lot of money to see one whale shark.
And that’s usually by being surrounded by tens of people wanting to see it too.
But in nabire, the four of us, saw 7 whale sharks altogether.
In this frame you can see only four.
Diving destinationsare one of
The main materials that divemag covers. Because we want to show people the beauty of the underwater world of Indonesia.
That was in nabire. Here you can see a man-made modern temple,
In Bali.
If you go to Derawan, you’ll meet lots of turtles.
In Ambon, the beauty is just magnificent.
Maybe most of you haven’t heard of “Sabu”.
It’s a small island in Nusa Tenggara Timur.
And if you can see this, there are many channels that are formed.
It can go as deep as 2 to 3 meters, and it is formed by waves from hundreds or even thousands of years ago.
This is a photo in Arborite, Papua.
It’s a pretty small island.
But the jetties have plenty of fish.
Children in the area, they like to wake up early,
They take a fishing hook,throw it to the sea, pull it out, without bait,
And they usually get a fish.
[audience laugh]
Or, we can also see here, someone spear fishing
In Kupang, there’s a fresh water cave, you can dive there.
And you can see fossilized sea animals.
Here’s an example.
A giant clam, that has calcified.
In Papua, there are a lot of interesting things to photo.
Now, generally, we know that people uses fishnets to fish. But what happens?
A lot of times, we catch something that we don’t need.
And secondly, most of the fish are dead.
In Alor, the use "Bubu"s or fish traps.
So, when the fish enters the trap, who know how it got in there,
The fishermen, take the Bubus out in the afternoon.
The fish is still alive and fresh.
The fish that they don’t want to eat, they return it to the sea, while still being alive.
I took a picture of this old man. He is a teacher, in the morning he teaches, in the afternoon, he goes to the sea and picks up his bubus.
We try to promote Indonesia’s underwater.
Including photography.
One of the ways to do underwater photography is by
introducing
Photos taken using pocket cameras.
For example, this photo is
Cuttlefish egg, which I luckily found.
That picture,
I took that with a pocket camera, and the prize money I got from it, I used to buy an SLR.
[audience laugh]
This is a trumpet fish. I found it at night time, I don’t know why he’s
Interested in me. He keeps on getting closer. Usually they are afraid.
So, what usually makes us afraid of the ocean?
One of the reasons is this animal
Yeah, scary.
Actually, it’s not as scary as people think. They are more interested in eating fish in the sea rather than eating us, with high cholesterol rates.
[audience laugh]
On the contrary sometimes people like to take random stuff from the ocean.
That can be more dangerous.
For example,
A cone shell like this. Apa ya, Cone Shell seperti ini,
People see it, and sometimes they put it in their pockets.
It has a deadly dart.
So never take things out of the ocean, OK.
Ok.. this photo, I’d just like to show you that on the top left corner is my first son Devin.
We have a ritual, almost every year I take Devin with me on one of my dive trips.
And usually, we do it in remote areas.
This is in Alor.
What I've realized is that both of us got to spend
Valuable time together.
What I noticed is that after returning from our trips, Devin develops significantly.
He becomes more independent and everything.
So, those of you who have children,
If you take your kids to these places,
Maybe the cost will be much cheaper then taking them abroad,
But trust me, the value is many folds compared to taking the to theme parks or expensive malls.
[audience applause]
After Devin returns from these trips, he goes back to school, and he doesn’t tell stories about his trip overseas, or going to theme parks like the rest,
But what he tells over and over again, is his trip Alor years back, and other places.
Now, if you have come to the realization, that you live in the coral reef capital of the world,
This is something that cannot be valued with a pricetag.
It would be a shame, if you already live here but don’t experience it.
So start to get to know the ocean.
These photos cannot tell you the whole story of the beauty of Indonesia’s underwater.
You have to see it yourself.
See you down there!
[audience applause]