Friday, March 19, 2010
Just done shooting new manatee footage in HD. We lost 350 of them to the severe cold conditions during the winter. A manatee towing a satellite tracking buoy approached me numerous times out of her own curiosity. I think she was wondering why I wasn't yelling and running around on the bottom like a bunch of tourists snorkelers. Anyway, I got some great shots and had a blast in a beautiful place.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
It's been a long time since I've posted to this blog. Still, a lot has been going on. I've been busy shooting above and below the water line in HD (1080i) since 2007. The archive now has:
- Coral monitoring being done by diving scientists.
- Lots of new Goliath Grouper footage. Including Goliath interacting with divers.
- Lots of Spearfishing footage
- Footage of divers hunting spiny lobsters
- Coral bleaching
- Water pollution
- Kite boarding
- Lots of tropical and coastal weather events
Lots of the best clips from all the new content has been archived to master quality on co-located digital storage. Our quick delivery of screener material and master footage via FTP continues to save cost and time for our clients.
TWC has frequently been licensing my ENG weather video through BNVN. I was interviewed live by TWC for some flooding video I shot in Sept 2009. ABC, Planet Green, Nat Geo, and several overseas networks have licensed my footage for documentaries during 2009.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
2007 looks to be another year of growth for Subsurface Media and Creative Heads. More clients, more projects, and more content. Speaking of content.... I just returned from 8 days in the Riviera Maya where I was busy shooting like crazy to build our library of 16:9 underwater footage and Riviera Maya lifestyle footage. I stayed in a tree-top level palapa in Puerto Soliman thanks to my cave diving friend Andy who is blessed to have a place there. We made a half dozen Cenote dives and we bagged about 5 hours of gorgeous cave and cavern diving footage, much of it tripodded. The sunlight dancing through the openings of the cenotes is absolutely breathtaking, and the video captured it well. We also made a quick trip to Cozumel to get in a couple of ocean dives. There I was fortunate to capture some great video of a couple of hawksbill sea turtles feeding on the reef.
Friday, August 04, 2006
2006 mid-summer update
June:
June:
- Shot some good stock weather video of Tropical Storm Alberto as it moved up Florida's west coast and made landfall in Steinhatchee FL.
- Made two 4 day trips to the Dry Tortugas late in the month, logging 27 dives and shooting lots and lots of nice 16:9 stock video.
July:
- Shot video of a tornadic waterspout on Saturday July 8th right from my neighborhood looking west towards Siesta Key.
- Shot a decent amount of beach lightning, sunset and coastal seabreeze thunderstorm stock video.
- Hit the ledges of Ft. Pierce FL on July 26th to shoot video of divers hunting for spiny lobster on the first day of sportsman lobster season.
Please check out some preview clips of the above video on Google by clicking the link below:
Thursday, July 28, 2005
I made two photography trips to the Dry Tortugas this July, shooting both underwater and top-side photos and video. Both trips were done aboard the 100 ft liveaboard "Ultimate Getaway" out of Ft. Myers.
The first trip was July 1-4, 2005. This was my 13th trip to the Tortugas since 2000. Overall, the conditions (weather, seas, current, visibility) were among the best I've experienced there. I don't think I saw a wave higher than 6 inches the whole time. It was sunny and unusually dry with the exception of one shortlived tropical rain shower. Visibility was 70 feet through most of the western Tortugas Ecological Reserve. I made 13 dives shooting mostly wide angle to take advantage of the great vis. Who could imagine Categorty 4 Hurricane Dennis was going to rake this area in less than 6 days.
Interesting to see a half dozen or so Cuban refugee boats ("chuggers") stored on Garden Key at Ft. Jefferson. First time I've seen this. Supposedly, a record number of Cuban's have made it ashore in the Tortugas this year. The improvised boats made for some interesting photos. There were still clothes in some of them.
My second trip was July 21-24, 2005. This was "post" Hurricane Dennis. Dennis plowed right through west of Garden Key, putting the Tortugas in the destructive right-front quandrant of it's path. The storm cut a path about 100 ft wide between Garden Key and Bush Key. So these two islands are now completely separated by water a few feet deep. You won't be walking from the fort to watch birds on Bush Key anytime soon. The damage to the palms trees showed evidence of a beating from strong SE winds.
I was suprised by the underwater impact of the storm. Ironically, the Windjammer wreck site within the park boundaries showed the least amount of damage. I'm guessing the water currents and wave action was greatly reduced by the surrounding shallow reef. However, out west in deeper water, around the "Sherwood Forest", the impact is quite amazing. In depths of 60+ feet, it looks like 4 to 12 inches of sand was removed from the bottom. You can see old bleached dead coral and limestone that was once burried in sand protruding from the bottom. This type of impact is most evident in the wide sand patches between patch reefs, where the moving water was channelled. Limestone boulders 3 to 4 feet wide were flipped over, with the sea fans, plants, and coral growth that once adorned their tops now crushed beneath them. I found it amazing what damage a storm could do at these depths, and feel fortunate that I was able to witness the "before" and "after" conditions of the area within a few weeks.
The resulting sandy setiment from the turbid storm waters blanketed the reef like a dusting of snow, and the vis below average. This is typical after a storm in the Gulf of Mexico, and the vis will probably remain below average until the next storm likely moves through during peak hurricane season in a few weeks. With current raging due to a full moon, most of our dives were drift dives. This is one reason I was able to witness the effects of Dennis over such a wide area of bottom. I made 11 dives this trip, and focused mostly on macro work.
Brian Dombrowski
SubSurfaceMedia.com
The first trip was July 1-4, 2005. This was my 13th trip to the Tortugas since 2000. Overall, the conditions (weather, seas, current, visibility) were among the best I've experienced there. I don't think I saw a wave higher than 6 inches the whole time. It was sunny and unusually dry with the exception of one shortlived tropical rain shower. Visibility was 70 feet through most of the western Tortugas Ecological Reserve. I made 13 dives shooting mostly wide angle to take advantage of the great vis. Who could imagine Categorty 4 Hurricane Dennis was going to rake this area in less than 6 days.
Interesting to see a half dozen or so Cuban refugee boats ("chuggers") stored on Garden Key at Ft. Jefferson. First time I've seen this. Supposedly, a record number of Cuban's have made it ashore in the Tortugas this year. The improvised boats made for some interesting photos. There were still clothes in some of them.
My second trip was July 21-24, 2005. This was "post" Hurricane Dennis. Dennis plowed right through west of Garden Key, putting the Tortugas in the destructive right-front quandrant of it's path. The storm cut a path about 100 ft wide between Garden Key and Bush Key. So these two islands are now completely separated by water a few feet deep. You won't be walking from the fort to watch birds on Bush Key anytime soon. The damage to the palms trees showed evidence of a beating from strong SE winds.
I was suprised by the underwater impact of the storm. Ironically, the Windjammer wreck site within the park boundaries showed the least amount of damage. I'm guessing the water currents and wave action was greatly reduced by the surrounding shallow reef. However, out west in deeper water, around the "Sherwood Forest", the impact is quite amazing. In depths of 60+ feet, it looks like 4 to 12 inches of sand was removed from the bottom. You can see old bleached dead coral and limestone that was once burried in sand protruding from the bottom. This type of impact is most evident in the wide sand patches between patch reefs, where the moving water was channelled. Limestone boulders 3 to 4 feet wide were flipped over, with the sea fans, plants, and coral growth that once adorned their tops now crushed beneath them. I found it amazing what damage a storm could do at these depths, and feel fortunate that I was able to witness the "before" and "after" conditions of the area within a few weeks.
The resulting sandy setiment from the turbid storm waters blanketed the reef like a dusting of snow, and the vis below average. This is typical after a storm in the Gulf of Mexico, and the vis will probably remain below average until the next storm likely moves through during peak hurricane season in a few weeks. With current raging due to a full moon, most of our dives were drift dives. This is one reason I was able to witness the effects of Dennis over such a wide area of bottom. I made 11 dives this trip, and focused mostly on macro work.
Brian Dombrowski
SubSurfaceMedia.com
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