Marine Biologist, Teacher, Underwater Photographer

Dr. James B. Wood
Assistant Research Scientist at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research
Director of Cephalopods at MarineBio.org

Welcome Dr. Wood!

1. Tell us about you, what you do, and how you got started.

I’m a marine biologist currently working as an Assistant Research Scientist at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research. I primarily work on invertebrates, especially cephalopods. In addition to scientific research, I also greatly enjoy sharing marine science through underwater photography, teaching and developing online web sites (The Cephalopod Page, CephBase, Census of Marine Life). One of the classes I teach is a three week scientific photography course in Bermuda.

In my spare time, I sell stock images, mostly of cephalopods, primarily for use in magazines and books.

I grew up in West Palm Beach, Florida and stated out as surfer and a marine aquarist. I didn’t get interested in photography until I was a junior at the University of Florida. I’ve been selling stock images since graduate school; this was necessary from the start for me to be able to afford the equipment.

2. What equipment do you use? What gear is your favorite and why?

I’m currently using a Canon 20d in an Ikelite housing with duel ds125 strobes. Prior to that I had a Fuji S2 also in an Ike box. I shot a Nikons V with 15 mm and extension tubes for macro prior to that.

I currently like Canon as they seem to be the most innovative of the big camera companies offering dSLR; Nikon and Olympus are also very good choices. Ikelite makes affordable but bulky dSLR housings and has great customer support. If I were to buy a new high end dSLR today it would be based on one of the full frame Canon or Nikon cameras. I recommend the digital Rebel as an excellent starting dSLR camera. If costs for these are too high, the price of used film-based cameras, including the Nikonos series, has dropped dramatically. Even the point and click underwater disposables are a very good value for their modest cost – just don’t try to shot macro or use their flash in murky water.

Whatever you use, the camera is merely a tool and the photographer is the key ingredient. All cameras, even the “best” ones, have limitations. Learn to use what you have.

Digital is important to me for that instant gratification factor and quick feedback is also a extremely useful tool for science, especially in field conditions. Also when teaching photography, digital gives everyone quick turn around time. I can present a lecture, the class can put what we learned to use, and then we can immediately evaluate the results. How cool is that?

I’ve recently been playing with underwater florescent photography and am thinking of trying medium format underwater (which means back to film, LOL).



The reason for considering going back to film with medium format is that the sensor size (in this case film) is huge, over 4 times that of 35 mm film and therefore quality (resolution) is much greater. Also, very few people are shooting medium format underwater. Anyway, I’m considering it.

3. What was your toughest experience? What was your favorite?

Toughest? Marketing images, the business side. I don’t have time to do it properly as I already have a full time job. Plus I’d much rather take pictures than sell them but need to sell some to support the equipment costs.

Flooding my camera is also up there with less than pleasurable experiences.

And then there was the time that shark bit my foot off. Just kidding – what is it with people and shark paranoia?

Favorite? Too many to list. . . Some are watching an octopus hunt at night in the Dry Tortugas, he completely ignored me and I was so captivated I forgot that I had a camera in my hands for 20 minutes, then when I started shooting he ignored me, having worked with cuttlefish in the lab it was a thrill to see my first cuttlefish in the wild in Thailand, being the first (and still only?) person to ever see and also photograph baby deep-sea octopuses hatching. . .

4. Do you have a favorite marine animal/s? What makes them your favorite? Which one/s are the toughest to work with?

Cephalopods!

What makes them my favorite? They have a large bag of visual tricks, they ink, jet and change color. They learn quickly. I have entire web sties to answer this question! How could anyone not like cephalopods?

They can be tough to work with but there are tricks. Many people can’t even find them.

5. Which animals would you like to capture on film that have eluded you?

I’d really like to observe and photograph Argonauts and other open ocean octopuses.

6. Who's work do you admire who also takes underwater photos and/or video?

Jim Church due to his clear easy to follow books were a great help when I started out.

I like to look at any and all underwater images, there are some good ones at wetpixel.com where I’m a scientific photography forum moderator. Wetpixel.com is an excellent resource for anyone interested in underwater digital photography.

7. How long did it take to get "good"? When did you know? How did you learn to take underwater photos/video?

I took a graduate-level photography class at University of Florida in the early 90’s. In this class I learned the technical site of photography but not much about composition. Most of my images from back then don’t meet my standards now, but a few of them, like this one:


O. briareus eggs with a penny in top right hand corner to establish a size comparison. You can clearly see the yolk sac, eye, chromatophores, in sac, and gills. These eggs are 80% to hatching. © James B. Wood

still do.

As a graduate student I joined the Photographic Guild of Nova Scotia, the largest photography club in eastern Canada and competed. There I went from abysmal to photographer of the year over a four year period. Also, I’ve read everything I can about underwater photography.

I’m still working on getting better and I suspect I always will be.

8. Have you won awards or been published?

Sure although I don’t compete in international competitions much, most competitions are scams that make money off of photographers entry fees, or worse, you sign over rights of your images for them to use however and whenever they want. Be careful! I’ve avoided these.

Where I did compete and learned a lot was from local competitions at the Photographic Guild of Nova Scotia. I highly recommend competitions in similar local clubs to gain experience and technique. Some of their assignments forced me to take images that I never would have on my own and the club had a wealth of senior members to learn from.

For the last few years I only “compete” by publishing. I have cover photographs on children’s books and aquarium magazines and inside shots on a number of other books and magazines. I use my images a lot when teaching and to visually support various web sites.

9. What tips would you suggest to people getting started in underwater photography or videography?

Take my Scientific Photography course!

Join Wetpixel.com

Read.

And get out there and start shooting! Even if you start with a disposable you can learn a lot. Even if you start learning the basics on land (shooting underwater is a very specialized area of photography, even how light behaves changes underwater).

And speaking of light, you can never study it to much. Photography is capturing light.

10. Is your work online?

Not as is should be, what I have online in my photography page is very old work or not developed (http://naturalworldstockphotography.com/). Some of my newer images are on The Cephalopod Page, some are on CephBase (see http://www.cephbase.utmb.edu/imgdb/imgs ... pherID=277), but I’m sitting on a pile of good images. Getting them online is something I intend to work on in 2006; I have loads of marine invertebrate images from Bonaire, Bermuda, Caymans, Dry Tortugas, Florida, Hawaii, Red Sea, Nova Scotia, Thailand, etc. I’ll update this post when more of my images are available for sharing online.

11. What do you think about marine conservation?

I think it is critical and hope that my photography, research and online work will help raise awareness of marine life in general and specifically marine conservation. I fully endorse MarineBio.org and its conservation and outreach work.

For cephalopods, Nautiluses are the group that I am concerned about. Unlike most cephalopods they have long life spans, take a long time to mature and have only a few offspring a year. They are the long lived elephants of the cephalopod world while most other cephalopods are short lived weeds. The beautiful shells are sold in every shell shop I’ve ever been in all over the world. For more on this, see (http://www.thecephalopodpage.org/tentacle.php and http://www.thecephalopodpage.org/nautcon.php).

12. What have I forgot to ask?

What is my favorite color? Blue of course.

Where do I live?

On a 41 foot sailboat. Yarrrrrrr!!!

Thank you Dr. Wood from all us here at MarineBio.org and the Plankton Forums! Your work is simply amazing and we look forward to seeing more of your photos in the future.