Reef Scenes - bill miller photography

This gallery is mostly about presenting the fragile reef system and what it offers to underwater explorers. There is color when parts of the scene are exposed to artifical light from a strobe, or strictly shades of blue when using natural light. The source of our natural light, the sun, is a featured element in many of the photos. The intricate patterns of life in the form of corals, sponges, and tiny critters are the primary subjects. I enjoy adding a diver, mostly as a secondary subject, to add interest to an image. Some of the photographs were taken at shallow depths (20-40 feet or so) and a couple were towards the reasonable depth limits of sport divers, close to 100 feet. The final two images could have been in a gallery named “Other”, but I just included them here because they are favorites even though not on a coral reef.
>Return to Our World Underwater

Reef Scene
Inspecting the coral head. Cozumel (1987)

Reef Scene
Natural light — no strobe. A strobe would not have been effective anyway as subject is too far away. Camera is pointed towards the surface giving a gradient of light to dark blues. Little Cayman Island. (1994)

Reef Scene
Coral plates in Yap. Yap is an island in the Federated States of Micronesia, in the Pacific Ocean. (1996)

Reef Scene
Natural light with the camera pointed to the surface to capture the glow of the sun. Cozumel (1997)

Reef Scene
Sea fans are a type of soft coral known as gorgonians, which are colonial animals that form beautiful, branching structures. They are found in warm waters and provide habitat for various marine life. Belize (1998)

Reef Scene
Closeup shot of coral. Rum Cay, Bahamas (1983)

Reef Scene
Sponges and corals. Belize (1998)

Reef Scene
Orange Cup Coral. Bonaire (1992)

Reef Scene
Coral patterns. Baja California Sur, Mexico (2000)

Reef Scene
Soft coral at Palau. Palau, a sovereign nation, is an archipelago of over 500 islands, part of the Micronesia region in the western Pacific Ocean. (1996)

Reef Scene
Blue Corner Cavern, Palau. (1996)

Reef Scene
Cozumel Island, Mexico (1997)

Reef Scene
Deep sponges. Rum Cay, Bahamas (1983)

Reef Scene
Orange sponge. Bonaire (1996)

Reef Scene
Color salad: Orange crinoid, sponges, corals. Dominica (1999)

In the Kelp
Not really a reef scene, but . . . Monastery Beach, Carmel, California (1991)

Shinkoku Maru Relic
Another "not a reef scene", but it is one of my favorites from inside of a WWII era Japanese wreck. The Shinkoku Maru was a Japanese fleet oiler that was sunk in Truk Lagoon during the U.S. Navy's Operation Hailstone in February 1944. Sandy was extremely careful not to move her fins, gently holding on to the floor. One kick of a fin and the scene would have been obliterated with silt. You can see a small cloud of silt by her hand. Truk Lagoon, Micronesia (Chuuk) in 1996

Our World underwater