Part 1: Describe a Photograph

I was out taking underwater photos of fish when I found 3 turtles at various parts of my swim. I wanted to swim with them and document them with both photo and video as they are amazing creatures to watch and I wanted to share the experience with my family. I have always been fascinated with turtles and the water around Pom Pom Island in the Celebes Sea has a lot of them. I wanted to take photos so you could see that I was swimming with them rather than being in front and getting the turtle head on as this may frighten them. I was almost swimming above this young green turtle when I took the photo. I have only taken photos of turtles once before, the other times I have seen them I have not had a camera with me. The first time I was pretty happy with the images but feel this time was better as I knew more about what to expect. The other thing I was noticing as I shot was that there is some more coral now and a lot more fish, this is an area where bomb fishing has killed lots of coral but replanting has meant the fish are coming back. Turtles like the area as there is grass for them to feed on and they also nest on the island. I used my Nikon coolpix underwater digital camera as this is waterproof to 10m.. I used it in the special underwater mode, then changed the levels slightly in photoshop elements 8 until I felt the turtle was the correct colour as I remembered it. The water was quite shallow and we were mainly over sand rather than a large coral reef. I also had to be quite mindful of what direction I was taking photos in as looking in some directions meant the light was terrible due to the angle of the sun on the water. I also had to swim pretty fast to keep up – turtle chasing is definitely a good form of aerobic exercise!