25 Jan 2018

Getting that perfect underwater shot

From Nine To Noon, 9:39 am on 25 January 2018

It can take years to have the perfect underwater scene in front of you and and then only seconds to actually get the shot, says photographer Darryl Torckler .

Torckler had spent years trying to get a picture of a fish eating another, and finally happened on a blue cod devouring a scarlet wrasse.

"It all happened in front of me and I had about 30 seconds to nail a picture of it," he says.

Torckler's stunning underwater image of the elusive flying fish earned him an award in the 2017 New Zealand Geographic Photographer of the Year competition.

Flying fish provide the ultimate challenge; they're fast, underwater and shy of divers, he says.

The photographer had been capturing nocturnal images of wildlife since 2014, and three years later achieved the flying fish shot.

It's about "getting everything lined up", he says.

"It's about having good weather, having a night ... where the flying fish were cruising round and weren't so 'flighty'.

"If you're on the boat, and the boat's not moving much, the flying fish are calmer, and lights are not moving too much in the water.

"You're dealing with all that 'meatball' of plankton - it was so thick that I had to had to swish the plankton out of the way to allow a hole for the flying fish to come through ... to have a little bit of clear water.

Using a Nikon D800 with a 16mm Nikon fisheye lens, he stayed until the early hours of the morning taking pictures.

"I only got one or two good images," he says.

Practising photography for 40 years means now works instinctively. "You just can't think out while it's happening in front of you, you've got to work on your instincts."

Over the decades he has witnessed a startling decline in fish populations around New Zealand, most noticeably in school fish such as trevally, kingfish and kahawai.

 "I've just done a trip from North Cape down to Auckland over the last month and the school fish there is almost invisible compared to what it was 40 years ago.

"There used to be hectares of trevally across the waters round Cavalli Islands [near Whangaroa, Northland] and there's almost nothing there now.

"The bird life as well has diminished."

The New Zealand Geographic Photographer of the Year exhibition is on display at Auckland Museum until 25 February.