Dead Stuff

I was chatting with a buddy recently about some of the biggest scams in the industry.

How a very famous, and they'll know who they are, underwater photographer, took pictures of marine creatures for a very well established and respected magazine that were dead, frozen actually so that they wouldn't flap about in the current.

Although I didn't know the sources very well there were three of them, all independent of each other. Their accounts of how this individual went about it was enough to convince me.

So the question - OK or not? And has anyone done this outside of telling a story about dead turtles in a cave or something? I once took a picture of a turtle in a wreck that seemed very compliant. it was only when someone accidentally kicked it with a fin that I realised it was dead.

Not sure if my sources can be relied on enough to help me through any litigation if I name and shame??

I am pretty sure if you share the example you may find that other people know about it .. I remember being shown stuff like that before, first I heard of freezing dead animals though.

The worst I ever did was a nurse shark. I thought it was sleeping until I found it in the same spot 3 days later !

i know someone who took photos of a dead goat underwater that had been used as a sacrifice! hahah he is a member here, i wonder if he will post the photo?! tis rather "interesting"

Does "mostly dead" count? This Mola Mola was not long for the world

This squid got eaten by a Sperm whale, their favorite dish. Intact it would have been about 2 meters long (including tentacles)

Great picture Steve. I feel pretty sorry for that Mola Mola, floating around with no fins... Did the Sealions eat it/play with it?

I guess the good news is that they could not be accused of harassing the animal.

Necrophotography, what next politically incorrect underwater photography.

I was once asked to do an advertising photograph of a black-tie dinner party with one of the guests actually a pig in a dinner suit. In discussions at a meeting, the ad agency people asked me how I would do it. I said I would use a freshly killed pig (can you imagine trying to dress a live pig?) and the whole concept swiftly disappeared from the agenda!

I found this picture prior to this topic launching, not mine unfortunately but fits nicely into this category

Borut Furlan took this picture of a dead shark in a net and go Best of Show in the 3rd Annual Wetpixel and DivePhotoGuide International Underwater Photography & Video Competition.

I reckon he took it specifically with this thread in mind

Cheers

Hal

I was chatting with a buddy recently about some of the biggest scams in the industry.

 

How a very famous, and they'll know who they are, underwater photographer, took pictures of marine creatures for a very well established and respected magazine that were dead, frozen actually so that they wouldn't flap about in the current.

Ooops...

I just re-read the opening of this thread

I am in no way suggesting that Borut Furlan's shark was a scam, or that he killed it, or in any way set up this excellent picture!

Cheers

Hal

I was once with the previous owner of Pelagian, Matt H., when we found a dead shark trapped in a net. We decided to cut it out and I thought it would be good to take a picture of the other diver (ship's mate Zane) holding and swimming with it. It was at 30m and a stiff current was running and it was hard work. Matt ran out of air and made a fast ascent. Zane was so narked eventually with all the effort at depth that he got hold of the shark as planned but failed to notice it was still alive. Oops! Good pics!

Remember that, Frogfish?

I can answer the topic question with a large affirmative! I have taken lots of photos of dead fish, especially salmon! Pacific salmon are semelparous - they spawn and die, as do other fishes and other organisms. My dissertation was on the ecological role. Google Kline, Alaska, and salmon and you will find some of my pubs.

I have taken pictures of what I have studied. This was mostly on film but I have some digi shots too. Just this past weekend I was shooting a nearby and on-going eulachon (known as hooligan in Alaska) spawning run and a few of them were already dead. See attachment.

And some salmon at different stages of decomposition:

Great picture Steve. I feel pretty sorry for that Mola Mola, floating around with no fins... Did the Sealions eat it/play with it?

Yes, the Sea Lions were playing with it like a cat playing with a mouse. I read somewhere that they don't eat the Mola Mola since it is toxic to them, but they seem to take a fiendish glee in tormenting the poor thing and biting off its fins. This Mola Mola was a juvenile and was having a hard time not sinking to the bottom. The photo was taken at Santa Cruz Island last year. The water was very green and everyone else was grumbling about the vis, but for me it was an amazing moment to experience. It just goes to show; you never know what you will see on any given dive.

OK, I thought I was kind of a sicko because I take photos of dead animals whenever the opportunity presents itself. I even got the nerve to enter one in my camera club's monthly competition and I won an Award (the second highest score). It's not an uw pic but it's still a dead animal if you want to look.

Roadkill

Of course, I did not present this as a live specimen which would have been impossible, not to mention intellectually dishonest. If someone takes a photo of a dead animal and presents it as a live action shot, then I think it's really a matter of how they can look at themselves in the mirror and take themselves seriously. I was talking about a similar situation with a member of my camera club last night. There is a new member who joined the same time I did and in the beginning all of her scores in competitions were pretty low and her photos basically were very beginner-like. But then her friend, who is in Salon class (the highest) obviously started helping her out to the extent that you cannot tell her photos from her friend's. These are mostly photos of flowers that are made to look like water color paintings or pastels. All of a sudden, her scores shot up and now she is leading the competition of beginners. It's nice to have a mentor but these works of "photoart" are definitely not her's. But she likes high scores and that's all that matters to her.

Sorry if this became a hijack.

OK, I thought I was kind of a sicko because I take photos of dead animals whenever the opportunity presents itself. I even got the nerve to enter one in my camera club's monthly competition and I won an Award (the second highest score). It's not an uw pic but it's still a dead animal if you want to look.

Roadkill

This could become a 'Blood and Guts' thread.

This could become a 'Blood and Guts' thread.

I have a few shots of a dead vole that my cat killed. I took various poses of it. I can post them after I get home because they are on my home computer. It was clean kill though. No blood anywhere. LOL

About 30 years ago I and 2 divemasters from the Riding Rock Inn on San Sal took a freshly caught and quite dead blue marlin underwater in an attempt to photograph it. First we tried tying it up under the diveboat with monofiliment. That was a total failure, the fish would just flop over. Eventually we discovered that if you had one diver holding the tail fin, pushing it while they swam, the marlin would kind of fly through the water. So that's what we did. One diver pushing and the others swimming ahead photographing.

Our dive ended when we started to get unwanted attention from the local preditor population. 30 years ago there were lots of sharks and some really, really big barracuda on the reefs there. The marlin had a couple of gaff wounds on its side and it was probably leaving a scent trail. The guy who "loaned" us the fish would have been pissed if we brought it back with a couple of pieces missing.

Several of the photos were pretty good and even won prizes in a couple of photo contests and were published a few times. I shot from ahead of and below the marlin so the angle was such that you could see the pushing diver but he just looked like he was behind the fish with a nice sunburst in the background. If I can find some of the slides I will scan a couple and post them but I think my old stock agency has the best ones.

I didn't think I was, and still don't think I was doing anything unethical. I never misrepresented the shot as anything more than it was. Of coarse, if you didn't ask, I didn't tell.

I was out for this particular dive with a cold, but I heard that Stinky Dead Dolphin Reef in remote Irian Jaya was a real treat, with the eponymous ex-cetacean floating above the reef in a miasma of corrupting intestines. At least one UW photographer on the trip took some shots, but I have never seen the result. He doesn't post here to my knowledge (Mark... are you out there listening...)

Some more:

We found the remains of a dolphin between La Paz and La Reyna (Baja California) in deep blue water, the small fish surrounding the carcas were atracting....

larger pelagics (mahi-mahi). Unfortunately no Sailfish or Marlin, but it was pretty cool to be in the water with these fish you rarely see near reefs. The smell of it was just horrible...

This could become a 'Blood and Guts' thread.

I was thinking this thread could give the term “Still Life†a whole new meaning.

Yes I have, and here they are, although they are not underwater they do deal with marine issues:

Both were taken with a P&S camera and are casual explorations of an environmental theme.