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MACRO ARE US

I’ve been doing a bit of macro underwater photography as of late at the Bay. I gotta admit, it’s given me a renewed appreciation for what father nature can do.

Now, we’ve all heard the old saying that “you can’t see the forest for the trees.” Well, I’m here to tell you that you “can’t see the bay for the rubble.” Rubble you say! Yup! Actually a lot of the bay’s bottom is strewn with both coral and coralline algae rubble that has been laid down by father nature over the eons. Aided by the occasional rogue high wave producing storm, such as we experienced in Dec of 2003, coupled with the mass of daily biped visitors, the Bay has more than it’s share of rubble on the bottom.

Now, aesthetically speaking, this is a bit distressing but on the positive side, there’s a lot more nooks and crannies available to harbor crabs and other critters which make up the lower levels of our food chain so I guess it evens out. Hmm! Where was I going with all of this?

Oh yeah! Macro photography! Up close and personal macro shots have recently revealed to me a whole new world under fin. Looking at a close-up of a Rock Boring urchin, you can see the fine detail that nature’s architects have engineered into our critters. You can see fine tubes emanating from the surface of what appears to be a craggy spiked planet and beautiful scalloping at the base of the countless spines. Do a close-up of a bit of coral and the polyps appear in fine detail, each attempting to outdo its neighbor in the plankton gathering competition? Detail that is missed from a ‘normal’ view. Even fish reveal incredible beauty when observed in 1 square inch bites rather than the more normal ‘wide angle’ view.

Thinking if it’s extraordinarily beautiful in nature and that by association, I too am part of nature, I attempted to take some self portraits of my own macro world. (Hey, I see me daily in the mirror and I gotta admit, the wide angle view is a bit tiresome!) Soo, I took some macro shots of select body parts such as my bellybutton and my nose. The former looked like a bottomless hairy pit that could have starred in a Harry Potter movie and the latter like a pockmarked ski slope being ‘prepped’ for the annual mogul downhill competition!

Ugh! Think I’ll limit my macro efforts to the more forgiving and much more beautiful underwater world! Oh yeah! Anyone wanna buy an 8 by 10 glossy of my left ear canal! With a little imagination you could be looking at the entrance to King Tut’s tomb! Aloha as always, Larry Winnik