2nd Place, Pool-Conceptual

Conor Culver

"Clown Fish Circus"

Conor won a 3-night Fly Dive Cod Hole trip from Mike Ball Dive Expeditions 

The Story:  Clown Fish Circus is part of my body of work titled Underwater Surrealism. As a whole, the body of work references the name of the animal, something unique about the animal, or imagining them as something on land people would connect with.  This body of work also is a reference to how the reefs, the oceans and its inhabitants are often neglected.  When environmental disasters on land occur, most are front-page news, but I am still waiting to see that same publicity for disasters in the ocean. Both are horrible, but only one receives the attention. So if I bring these creatures into scenes on land, are they now just as important? This work is an attempt to break down that out of sight, out of mind attitude towards the oceans. 

Individually, each image tells something about the particular fish or animal to bring awareness to these creatures some people have never seen before and spread awareness about these animals that live in the oceans. 

This image was planned well before I traveled to Indonesia and came across the clown fish. I saw the circus tent in Denver, CO and immediately knew I wanted to have clown fish swimming around at night for the final image. I wanted to reference their name and their home being in sea anemones. The tents would reference both of these traits of the clown fish. When I was in Ambon, I came across many of the maroon clown fish and the males were so beautiful and bright. I immediately knew these were the fish I wanted to place into this scene. 

Location:  Clown fish shot in Ambon, Indonesia. Tents shot in Denver, Colorado

Camera:  Nikon D800e and Nikkor 60mm Macro Lens (F18, 1/250, ISO 160) with Ikelite Housing and Dual Ikelite DS160 Strobes

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