1/600 of a Second
A single frame is 1/600 of a second. What comes before it is everything else.
The learning. The missed shots. The equipment that fails at exactly the wrong moment. The days when the weather turns and you surface empty-handed. None of that appears in the final image.
This video offers a small look at the before. One dive. Flinders Pier.
I've returned to this pier many times. When I learned about plans to remove its timber structure, I wanted to spend time with it — and with the weedy sea dragons that live among its pylons — before that changed.
They are experts in camouflage. You can look directly at one and see only kelp. They feed on small crustaceans and zooplankton in the shelter the pier creates. They are found only in southern Australian waters. Their only real threat is us — pollution, habitat destruction, the international aquarium trade.
One dive. One minute of it. One frame.