Here are a couple more pictures from my recent visit to Palau, these from two encounters on consecutive days with Napoleon wrasse (Cheilinus undulatus) at the world-famous Blue Corner dive site.

Inquisitive Napoleon wrasse at Blue Corner in Palau

If you have a chance to dive at Blue Corner, chances are good that at least one of these charismatic fish will approach, and possibly even sneak up on you.

It’s not unusual to see divers swimming happily along, oblivious to the big, fat Napoleon wrasse cruising above, peering down on said clueless divers, while other bemused divers watch the fish watch the divers.

See why Blue Corner is famous?

And true to their namesake, these fish can sometimes cop an attitude, scrutinizing hapless bubble-blowing tourists like me with considerable disdain:

Napoleon wrasse looking down on me. Sheesh.

Napoleon Wrasse at Blue Corner

I’ve just returned from a terrific visit to Palau, during which I visited the famous Jellyfish Lake again.

Lots of jellyfish at Jellyfish Lake in Palau

Although I’ve been here several times and have also spent time at a similar lake in Indonesia, there is something about the tranquility of the place, and the unique sensation of being surrounded by pulsing, innocuous jellyfish that makes every visit special.

If you’re not familiar with Jellyfish Lake, it is one of five similar saltwater lakes in Palau where jellyfish have lived in isolation for thousands of years. Jellyfish Lake is the only one that is open for visitors.

Over time, the stinging cells of the resident jellies have lost their punch, so to speak. These animals (yes, they are animals!) still have nematocysts, but their toxin is generally not powerful enough to affect people. The jellyfish survive mostly by living in cooperation with algae contained within their bodies.

Mastigias cf. papua etpisoni jellyfish, with nefarious mini-me sidekick

There is no scuba diving permitted at the lake, so even if you’re not a diver, it’s worth investing time to visit Jellyfish Lake if you find yourself in Palau.

Access to the lake is by boat, followed by a short climb up a clearly marked path to the top of the island and over to the enclosed body of water. The trek entails walking over some sharp stones, tree roots and such, so you’ll need to take along sturdy footwear, as well as a mask, snorkel and fins.

Dan took this photo of me, which helps convey what it’s like to be surrounded by jellyfish.

Outnumbered by pulsing cnidarians, Jellyfish Lake in Palau

Note that I’m looking around, trying to figure out where to point my camera. The jellies move continuously, so framing a nice shot requires a bit of patience and anticipation.

Palau’s Jellyfish Lake

Late last week, a number of media outlets in the UK published a series of photographs of a dead blue whale that I took during a recent visit to Sri Lanka (Daily Mail, Mirror, The Sun, Huffington Post).

Dead blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus)

I thought it worth augmenting what appeared in the mass media with some additional background information for anyone who might be interested, as well as to add some personal thoughts about the experience.

Cause of Death
Let me start by stating that I cannot be 100% certain that the cause of death was a ship. It is impossible to know exactly what happened without witnessing the actual event.

I put together what I saw with the information I gleaned from other people, and I pieced together a narrative that seemed to make most sense.

The exact text I sent to my media rep was:

“I photographed this whale in the afternoon of 3 April 2012, between five and ten kilometres south of Weligama Bay, which is at the southern tip of Sri Lanka. Many people on whale watching boats saw it.

The whale was not significantly decomposed when I saw it, so it had probably not been dead for very long. My guess is that it may have been struck by a ship during the night, while the animal was resting at the ocean surface.

When whales die, internal decomposition causes gas to build up inside the whale’s body, causing the carcass to bloat. There was no visible bloating, so this suggests the whale had not been dead long when I photographed it.”

Dead blue whale adrift in an area of heavy shipping traffic

Note that I wrote “My guess is…”, because that’s precisely what it was, an informed supposition, based on the lack of significant decomposition, absence of bloating, the nature of the wound, and the circumstances in which the whale was found.

More specifically, the whale was in a zone of high shipping traffic. Shipping lanes in the vicinity pass through prime blue whale habitat. Humongous ships (ones so big I initially mistook them for islands) cruise through the area on a constant basis.

Another consideration was the fact that another blue whale had arrived in port perched on the leading edge of a ship’s bow just a couple of weeks before I photographed this one.

Of course, nothing is impossible, so there is some chance that the whale died of other causes and was subsequently struck by a passing ship, or that the wound was caused by something else.

One possibility I considered was scavenging by a large shark. The wound was huge, so had it been a shark, it would have been an enormous one. I looked for teeth that may have been lodged in the wound, as well as for scrapes or other signs of scavenging, but was unable to see anything to suggest a large predator was the cause of the wound.

Moreover, there were no signs of any sharks (or any other scavengers) during the entire day, despite the fact that the whale carcass was leaking bodily fluids into the water. If a shark had been nearby, it would be difficult to imagine the fish passing up a free meal as tempting as a dead blue whale.

In the final analysis, the most probable cause of death seemed to be a ship strike.

Surface view of the dead blue whale

How Can a Whale be so Stupid? How Can a Ship be so Careless?
It is perhaps natural to wonder how a blue whale, a highly intelligent animal with senses finely attuned to surviving in its environment, could possibly let a loud, gigantic ship sneak up and clobber it.

Similarly, it is probably natural to wonder why ships don’t have a system to avoid such collisions.

Well…I don’t believe it’s really a case of unintelligent whales or negligent ships. It’s probably fair to say that whales avoid ships when they can, and most ships would probably choose to avoid whales as well. In other words, ship strikes happen despite the best of intentions by cetacean and human alike.

There was a good opinion piece that came out in the Independent discussing some of the possible reasons why whales sometimes aren’t able to avoid ships and vice versa. It’s worth a read, as the author does a better job of explaining the scenarios that I probably can.

But in any event, ship strikes on cetaceans are not a particularly unusual occurrence.

In fact, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) has a database of documented ship strikes, which you can access on this page: http://iwcoffice.org/sci_com/shipstrikes.htm

If you download and view the Excel file, you’ll see that there are a lot of entries, from all over the world, involving many cetacean species.

The IWC database is neither comprehensive nor definitive. There is inherent uncertainty when considering ship strikes, because there is no way that every incident is reported, and there is always the possibility of mistakes being made.

But…if you look at the table…there is little doubt that ship strikes are a serious issue. And with levels of commercial maritime traffic on the rise, it stands to reason that the chances of ship strikes are also growing. Of course, not all ship strike incidents are by large commercial vessels. Some involve whale-watching boats, military vessels, or private leisure craft.

One other thing worth noting from the file is the range of species: blues, fins, humpbacks, rights, orcas, sperms, Bryde’s, grays, and more.

Many people understandably get upset about the practice of whaling. It’s bloody, cruel, and arguably unnecessary. But whaling is targeted to specific species, mostly minke whales. By most estimates, there are hundreds of thousands of minke whales. That’s not an endorsement of whaling by any means (i.e., don’t flame me for stating a fact).

But the thing about ship strikes is that they are indiscriminate. Ships inadvertently injure and kill many species, including ones that are in serious trouble, such as blue whales or right whales in the North Atlantic, both listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List.

That’s an issue worth mulling over. The loss of a single blue whale or North Atlantic right whale represents a disproportionately large impact on those species’ depleted populations. And yet, there is not nearly as much public concern about ship strikes as there is about whaling.

Doesn’t seem right, does it?

For reference, here are whale population estimates from the IWC: http://iwcoffice.org/conservation/estimate.htm

Close-up view of the dead blue whale’s wound

A Bit of Math
To provide a sense of scale and perspective for what happens when a large commercial vessel and a whale meet, here are some representative numbers:

Blue whale: Let’s way(!) overestimate and say 30 metres long and 200 metric tonnes (200,000kg).

vs.

Example large container ship: 350 metres in length carrying 10,000 TEUs, with each TEU representing an average of 15,000kg = 150,000 metric tonnes, before accounting for the ship’s mass

You can certainly dispute my very-rough assumptions, but the end conclusion remains the same: a blue whale, as large as it seems to us, is puny by comparison to a large commercial vessel, both in size and mass.

In addition, large commercial ships can cruise at 20+ knots in open ocean (37km/ hr, 23mph), which means any cetacean that happens to be in the way doesn’t stand a chance. It also means that it’s very difficult for a large ship to change course quickly, even if it notices something in its path and tries to avoid it.

Thoughts About Sri Lanka
Although this specific experience was in the waters of Sri Lanka, I think it important to underscore that this is not an issue that is unique to that country. In fact, as is apparent in the IWC file, this is a global dilemma. Cetacean deaths from ship strikes occur in shipping lanes around the world.

It just so happens that there are active shipping lanes just south of Sri Lanka, where many large ships travel at high speed, ferrying consumer goods and supplies among major ports. And it just so happens that there is a nascent whale-watching industry in Sri Lanka, which is how I and other people ended up seeing this specific blue whale.

My view is that the development of a whale-watching industry in Sri Lanka is positive. It generates tourism revenue, introduces people (both locals and visitors) to the wonders of the oceans, and hopefully, in the long run, provides incentive to protect the whales, other marine organisms, and aquatic ecosystems in general.

Sri Lanka is a wonderful place, somewhere I may have never had the opportunity to visit were it not for the whales.

There are, however, challenges to be overcome, the most immediate of which stems from the rapid profusion of boats and visitors. As in other locations where marine-based tourism is popular, boating discipline on the water is of paramount importance.

Lots of boats trying to please lots of people, all of whom want to see lots of whales..is a situation that can potentially lend itself to less-than-ideal behaviour at sea. The challenge for all concerned is to understand and accept that in the long-term, safe encounters that don’t harass animals or place people at risk are the only way to ensure a solid reputation, ongoing revenue and happy cetaceans.

Rear view of the dead blue whale

The Silver Lining?
Whenever something bad happens, it’s a good idea to look for the silver lining.

I don’t know yet if there will be one that appears from this situation, but I’m hoping that documentation of this dead blue whale, as well as the one that was photographed in March this year, may give occasion for pause…for concerned people from many different walks of life to consider whether there may be a constructive way to reduce the chances of ship strikes taking place in Sri Lanka, with minimal, or ideally no, disruption to the flow of commercial shipping traffic.

On the positive side, there are existing examples of shipping companies, cetacean researchers and conservationists working together to do exactly this, notably in the North Atlantic to protect the few remaining North Atlantic right whales.

But to get to such a position, there must be consensus that this issue needs to be studied and addressed, and then, there needs to be sufficient funding dedicated to this task…funding for data collection about the ocean, about the blue whales and other large marine fauna in the area, and about shipping traffic…in order to derive conclusions and recommendations based on fact.

It’s easy, and tempting, to demand justice now(!) for the whales. But getting emotional rarely solves problems; it often exacerbates them.

In the long run, only meticulous gathering and analysis of data can lead to positive change.

Close-up view of the dead blue whale’s throat grooves

Dead Blue Whale

Rob Dunford, an amateur artist based in Reading in the United Kingdom, contacted me some time ago to ask if it would be OK to use my photos of humpback whales as reference materials for a painting.

Rob recently completed his painting, and sent me a nice photo:

Acrylic painting by Rob Dunford,
based on some of my humpback whale photographs

It’s sort of a composite of two photos I took: one in 2005 of a male and female humpback whale engaged in courtship; and the other of the first baby whale I photographed in the 2007 calving season in Tonga, which I nicknamed Hina Hina. (Amazing how I can remember each whale I’ve met, but can never recall where I left my keys, isn’t it?)

Rob took this painting to the Reading Guild of Artists last month for comment, and apparently, they would like him to present it again to the Exhibiting Panel in August. He’s also in discussion with a fine art gallery about the possibility of exhibiting this painting and creating more marine art.

Congratulations Rob!

I’ve written in the past about how uncool it is for people to paint replicas of photographs and try to pass it off as “original” work, but it can be different when people like Rob contact me in an open, honest manner.

We’re in regular communication now, and I’m hoping to see more of Rob’s work in the future.

Related posts:
Rant, Rave, Respect
Whale Painting

Rob’s Rorqual Rendition

It has become all-too-apparent of late that certain denizens of the sea, namely sharks, have been receiving disproportionate attention relative to their peers. By many estimates, over 100 million of these cartilaginous fish are killed each year, mostly for their fins.

For too long, sharks have been getting all the attention.

It is not that I object to the mass extermination of ecologically important apex predators per se.

Shark fin soup is, after all, a vital part of Chinese culture and history. Moreover, as any reasonable person knows, consuming shark fin is proven to cure all manner of ills; provide otherwise “ineffective” men with that special “oomph” required in conjugal (and extra-conjugal) activities; and confer exceptional and undeniable social status on otherwise undistinguished persons who, through quirk of circumstance, possess a more substantial ratio of monetary means than good sense or moral propriety.

No…my singular objection is to the plight of certain kin of sharks…specifically, mantas and their smaller brethren mobula rays.

Consider for a moment the fact that these rays have received nowhere near the level of attention that sharks have in recent years.

One doesn’t, after all, visit an exclusive dining establishment to sample an overpriced bowl of chicken broth labelled “manta fin soup”, does one? Neither does one come across canned “manta fin soup” on grocery store shelves, or contend with obstinate parents demanding the serving of “manta fin soup” to mark the joyous nuptials of daughters and sons.

Such is my inherent sense of fair play that I find this imbalanced state of affairs outrageous and entirely unacceptable. The paucity of attention afforded to mantas hardly seems just, particularly in light of the many similarities between sharks and large oceanic rays.

Besides being cartilaginous and living in the sea, both sharks and rays are at the top of their respective food chains, meaning their numbers are inherently sparse. Both often roam great distances, which complicates any effort to track and monitor them.

Both also have long, drawn-out reproductive cycles, characterised by infrequent mating and extended gestation periods, as well as by low numbers of progeny.

Finally, sharks and rays require many years to mature, meaning that populations of both types of fish are susceptible to overhunting.

It is thus, after exhaustive analysis, painstaking deliberation and measured consideration, that I have arrived at a simple conclusion…expeditious action is required to rectify this abhorrent situation.

As such, I hereby present for general consideration the following modest proposal:

• Whereas the market for shark fins is already well established and highly profitable, but global shark populations are disappearing en masse as a result;
• Whereas manta ray populations are as-yet relatively unharmed, but have long been underappreciated, existing in the shadow of their close cousins…sharks; and
• Whereas credulous Chinese (and other Asian) consumers seem forever eager to overpay for miscellaneous parts of rare animals in a never-ending search for elusive magical healing powers and self esteem;

The conclusion is inescapable: The time to exploit mantas is now.

The time to exploit mantas is now!

Please allow me to elaborate.

Sharks have been the centre of attention for many years in no small part because of their fins…their “unique selling proposition” so to speak. People go to great lengths to kill sharks for their fins.

Mantas and mobulas are filter feeders; they use gill rakers (branchy filaments of cartilage) to extract life-giving sustenance from the vast, seemingly empty ocean…almost as if by magic.

It doesn’t, therefore, take an inordinate degree of imagination to recognise the compelling market opportunity represented by this situation: Gill rakers are the perfect “unique selling proposition” for mantas rays, just as fins are for sharks.

If consuming over-boiled, congealed strands of cartilage from the fins of sharks can impart great power and prestige, then it only stands to reason that anyone consuming the cartilage comprising gill rakers would be the beneficiary of unique energy, longevity, wisdom and healing powers that can be imparted only via the transcendental essence of large oceanic rays.

Manta ray gill rakers: the perfect market opportunity

By hunting mantas and mobula rays in great numbers across the world’s oceans in order to harvest their gill rakers for sale at exorbitant prices to gullible Asian consumers…everyone wins:

• Mantas and mobulas get to bask in the limelight along with sharks;
• Purveyors of animal parts throughout Asia benefit from a new, remunerative business; and
• Asian consumers have the opportunity to lavish extravagant sums of money on quixotic potions and elixirs in the name of vanity and superstition.

Genius like this, my friends, is why Homo sapiens rule the planet.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Note: Just in case you haven’t figured out that I’m being ridiculous to illustrate a point…let me just state, for the avoidance of doubt, that I’m being ridiculous to illustrate a point.

The links below are a good place to start getting the facts:

Manta Trust
Manta Trust Facebook Page
Manta Ray of Hope Project
WildAid

Gill rakers, extracted from a mobula ray to cater to gullible consumers

A Modest Proposal

On one level, this is a photograph of a female sperm whale executing a playful flick of her fluke at the ocean surface.

Stories are to images as souls are to people

The thing about photography though, at least for me, is that images should be about more than just taking a snapshot of a particular moment in time.

Compelling photos, those that make you sit and stare for a while, are ones that convey stories. In fact, the more intricate the stories are, and the “deeper” (excuse the pun) the tales go…the more memorable the image.

Take the photo above. It’s by no means the most exciting picture of a sperm whale I’ve ever taken, but I like it…in large part because there are multiple stories embedded within the image.

I could, for instance, describe the immediate experience of having a 12-metre toothed cetacean swim up, take a look at you, then saunter off in a nonchalant manner. Woohoo!

Or…to look beyond the actual encounter…I could tell you about the series of events that led up to this face-to-face rendezvous: the dozens of whales we came across, the interactions among them, and how this particular individual seemed to fit in to the cetacean family’s activities for the day.

To go beyond even that, I could tell you about the hundreds of hours I’ve devoted over the years to sitting and waiting for whales like this…enduring extreme boredom in the process but also loving every second.

I could elaborate, and talk about how little knowledge we have about large marine mammals in general, because…well…they just don’t spend much time in places and conditions that make it easy for us to observe them. And even when they do, they often have more pressing matters to attend to than entertaining inquisitive landlubbers.

I could tell you about how this whale and its family group were similar to, and different from, other sperm whale families I’ve encountered in the past.

I could tell you about the first time I met a sperm whale, about how scared I was due to ignorance (they do have big mouths and big teeth, after all); how it decided to take my leg into its mouth (which, naturally, exacerbated my trepidation); and how I finally ended up making friends with the inquisitive animal (after taking back possession of all my limbs), resulting an experience that literally changed the course of my life.

Stepping back even more, I could tell you about the sad history of men and leviathans, about how “intelligent” humans, for many years, saw these majestic animals as a source of blubber and spermaceti…used to make truly important things like margarine.

My point is this: Stories are to images as souls are to people.

There has been and continues to be a lot of chatter on the net about gear…new cameras, different formats, amazing lenses, manufacturer A vs. manufacturer B, lighting modifiers, and so forth.

Gear is important. There is no question about it.

But when it comes time to create an image, it’s what you do with the gear that matters. It’s the story/ stories you convey.

In the final analysis, it’s the soul of the image that counts, not your choice of hardware.

The Soul of an Image

So I’m cruising along, and I see a blue whale take a massive dump. Naturally, I get in and swim through it:

That’s no surprise really, given my “talent” for being poo-ed upon by massive marine mammals (sperm whale poo, humpback whale poo, humpback whale poo too).

The unexpected, and entertaining part of the experience though, was that my (previously dignified) friend Serene also jumped in and swam through the pungent potage.

After we got back on the boat, she said: “That has to be the grossest thing I’ve ever done.”

To which my reply was: “See how much your life has improved since getting to know me?”

(Julia also jumped in, but I already expected nothing less from her.)

Blue Whale Poo

Having good food is important to me. I’m Chinese. It’s in my genes.

It’s so important, in fact, that it’s a determining factor in where I spend time, as well as how long I can stay.

Yummy food = I can stay a while. Not so yummy = I want to go somewhere with yummy food.

During my recent visit to Sri Lanka, I was fortunate enough to sample a lot of great cuisine, courtesy of my new friend Chef Champika. Suffice it to say that I scarfed down everything he made, no matter the quantity.

Delicious food in Sri Lanka

Of all the dishes I tried, my favourite was coconut sambal. It’s not too difficult to make, so I got the recipe…both so I can make it at home, and also to share with anyone else who might want to give it a try:

Ingredients:
1 freshly grated coconut
6 cloves garlic
8pc small purple shallots (bawang)
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp chili powder
Juice of 1 1/2 limes

Procedure:
1. Roughly chop garlic and shallots.
2. Put into a pestle add salt. Pound the mixture.
3. Add chili powder and pound again until quite fine.
4. Add a handful of the grated coconut and mix.
5. Add this mixture to the rest of the grated coconut, pour in lime juice. Mix well.
6. Enjoy!

Chef Champika making delicious coconut sambal

Delicious Food in Sri Lanka

It’s been a hectic couple of months. Of the past 10 weeks, I’ve spent eight getting jet-lagged, being jet-lagged, or trying to un-jet-lag myself.

With the input of friends, I’ve settled on the term “discombobulated desynchronosis” to describe my state of being. Basically, it’s a fancy way of saying that I feel perpetually dazed and confused (no comments from my “friends” please).

Anyway…updating my blog has sort of fallen by the wayside for a while as a result. I’ll try to get back into the swing of things now, starting with this photo from Sri Lanka:

Meeting Asha de Vos, with my friends Serene and Julia

I travelled to Sri Lanka recently with my friends Serene (left) and Julia (right). It was only my second visit to the country, and like last year, I had a wonderful(!) time.

One of the highlights of the trip was seeing friends I made last year, and also making new ones.

One of the new friends I made was Asha de Vos, an energetic and charismatic young cetacean researcher who is studying the blue whale population around Sri Lanka. I had been communicating with Asha for nearly a year, but this was the first time we met.

She and her family were kind enough to drive several hours to meet us for a chat. Even though our time together was brief, I could tell right away that we are kindred spirits, and I’m hopeful that our ongoing exchange of information and cooperation will result in lots of positive things to come.

Asha hasn’t known me long enough to know how silly I can be, so for the time being…I think she still takes me seriously. (Serene and Julia don’t though.)

Meeting Asha de Vos

Lytro cameras started shipping a few days ago.

Since then, major news and tech sites have published a flurry of reviews and write-ups, describing what a Lytro is (the world’s first lightfield camera for the consumer market) and offering a range of opinions about the camera, the underlying technology, and various pros/ cons.

If you’re unfamiliar with this new camera, I’d suggest you visit the Lytro website to get a quick overview. Particularly useful are the videos that describe the basics of how to use a Lytro.

Thanks to my friend Eric Cheng, who is the Director of Photography at Lytro, I’ve had a bit of a head start playing with and learning about the camera.

Given the number of sites and well-informed people who have opined on the Lytro, I’m going to steer clear of discussing anything remotely technical. Instead, I’m going to tell you about my own experience of getting to know the Lytro over the past couple of weeks, and why I think this camera is meaningful.

Lytro camera, 16GB Red Hot model

Context
First off, let me put the overall experience in context…the Lytro is different.

This may seem like a major “Duh!” statement, but just how different the experience of photographing with a Lytro is…is something that’s difficult to appreciate until you’ve spent some quality time with one.

The best way I can think of to describe what I mean is to draw a comparison between photography and verbal communication: If acquiring a new lens or camera body is like adding vocabulary; and if figuring out how to use new photo techniques is like refining nuances of grammar and syntax; then shooting with a Lytro is like learning a new language.

It’s that different.

The basics of photography obviously still apply, but the unique characteristics of this new camera make it imperative for you to re-examine how you look at and interpret a given situation, and most importantly, how you decide to communicate a message with it.

What Makes a Lytro Image Different?
With the benefit of some hands-on time with the camera (and a reasonable amount of head-scratching), I’ve worked out that what makes Lytro images unique is the ability to infuse multiple dimensions into a single scene…to convey a story by enabling the viewer to explore into a given “living image”.

It took a bit of time for me to figure this out. As is typical, I didn’t look at the Lytro site or otherwise seek advice before going out to shoot. Eric gave me a rapid-fire rundown on the basics of how to turn the camera on, turn it off, zoom, etc., but beyond that, I basically just experimented…which is pretty much how I approach anything new (yes…I never read instruction manuals).

I’m not ashamed to admit that I didn’t really get it at first. I took photos as I normally would, and ended up with shots that, well…didn’t do much for me, either aesthetically, or in terms of making use of the Lytro’s re-focus capability.

My Eureka! moment came when I decided to devote an entire day to fiddling with the Lytro. I waited for good weather, then hopped over to visit the large Buddha at the Kotoku-in temple in Kamakura, Japan, where I took this photo:

As soon as I reviewed the picture on the Lytro’s built-in LCD, I knew I had a keeper. I realised that a big part of the reason the photo worked was that I had thought of the “story” I wanted to convey first, and then took the photo.

As I walked into the temple grounds, I thought: “Wouldn’t it be cool if I could show my friends that I visited the big Buddha statue, and also illustrate that the admission tickets have an image of the Buddha printed on them?”

Of course, this would’ve been possible to some extent with a normal photograph (or series of photos), but with the Lytro image, I’m able to let the viewer explore one aspect of the story at a time…to use the “depth” engendered by the re-focus capability of the Lytro to convey multiple, inter-related messages within a single, static image, but in a dynamic manner. (Click on the image to re-focus.)

With this understanding…that dynamic multi-dimensional storytelling is at the core of a Lytro image…it quickly became easy for me to spot situations that might be suitable for a Lytro picture.

This photo, for instance, communicates the pleasant experience I had of purchasing nicely packaged osenbei (Japanese rice crackers) from a very helpful saleswoman:

Clicking on the branches in this photo highlights the accumulation of snow on branches, while clicking on the person immerses you in the experience of someone enjoying the snow:

In all of these images, the ability to dive into and explore various parts of a picture adds a new dimension that doesn’t exist with traditional still photographs.

Why Should You Care?
I’m sure there are people who won’t see value in photos like these. Some will no doubt deem Lytro images a fad, a one-hit-wonder that’ll pass without much lasting effect on photography.

It is, of course, impossible to predict the future, but for what it’s worth, here is my take:

The Lytro is a version 1.0 device. It’s simple, and it’s fun on its own; it has created a novel way to communicate with still images; but more importantly, I believe it represents an initial step toward what will be a fundamental transformation of imaging technology.

Think about it.

Though resolution is relatively low now, it’ll improve. It’s just a matter of time.

Though controls and functionality are dead-simple compared to other cameras on the market today, that’ll no doubt change soon as well, perhaps with software updates, or maybe with future changes in hardware.

Though it’s only possible to have one area in a photo in focus at any given time right now, that’ll no doubt change. Imagine having pinpoint-control over exactly what you want to be in- and out-of-focus. It’s just a matter of writing the appropriate software and having sufficient computing power to process more data.

Though the re-focus capability is applicable only to pictures now, it’s not difficult to imagine how this could apply to video as well. That’s also just a matter of time, appropriate software and sufficient computing power.

In fact, the Lytro represents a fundamental shift from hardware being the major determinant of the type of imaging that is possible…to software.

Mull that over for a while.

In every other instance I can think of when software has replaced hardware as the determining factor for any endeavour, the pace of advances has increased exponentially, opening up all sorts of new opportunities not just for technology, but also creativity.

That is why I care, and why I believe you should as well.

Disclosure: The Lytro camera I used for these photos is on loan from the company.

Learning To Use A Lytro