Some pics from Anilao Photo Workshop

I just got back from a weeklong photo workshop with Underwater Photography Guide to Anilao. The trip was fantastic, with great critter sightings, lots of photo ops, and tons of fun. Anilao continues to amaze me with a huge diversity of marine life, dive sites, and endless beauty. Some highlights include giant frogfish, coconut octopus, xeno crabs, bobbit worms, stargazers, jawfish, clownfish eggs, ornate ghost pipefish, pygmy seahorses, squat lobster, hairy squat lobster, orangutan crabs, sawblade shrimp, crinoid shrimp, pregnant pipefish, and gazillions of nudis and flatworms.

We stayed at Crystal Blue Resort, which took very good care of us. It was common to do 70-80 min dives 4 times per day. The guides were great too and tried very hard to find the critters that we wanted to shoot.

Some photos I took are attached. The full set of images is here. Any constructive comments and criticism are appreciated.

nice shots! What is the critter in hte first image?

Great pics!!! I agree Anilao is amazing. We were there last month and had a wonderful time.

Thanks for the kind words.

The first image is a photo of Saron spp., marbled shrimp. As noted in Reef Creature Identification (Humann/Deloach), this is a poorly studied group that awaits further research. This exact shrimp is actually in the cover photo for that book (and a much better photo than mine too...). It was my first sighting of this species but others' pictures show a huge diversity of patterns and color schemes.

Third trip to Anilao now and it is still full of surprises.

Thanks for sharing...!

Now I have new critters to look for when I go back.

Definitely agree with you... I haven't done a lot of dives but I find Anilao to be great...! Everytime I go there I see something new.

I think credit goes to how the local community has worked together to preserve the reefs and allows it to grow.

Cheers!