A yawn and a smile

[SteveGriffin]

These shots were taken off Tweed Heads on Tuesday Morning. It is a small wobbygong shark that is yawning. It is a normal behaviour of these sharks but I have never seen any other images of it.






I would love someone to have a go at improving these images in PS. My skills there are seriously lacking. Comments welcome.

[brembo]

The URL's in your links are buggered. There's \ instead of /

[big pix]

I think he was sizing you up for lunch......... the second shot at a quick look, looks a bit like a crocodile....... great shots..........

[Zeeke]

Good Ol Wobby... the Spearfishermans friend... so many stories about this placid shark attacking spearfisherman and dragging them down into the water... they have a bad habit of lockjawing..

Nice work Shane.. 2nd one deffinantly has your number!

Tim

[SteveGriffin]

Wobbies are really unpredictable critters. The only shark attack that I have witnessed involved a wobby. The victim had his pointer finger shredded by those needle like teeth.

As for locking on, there was a guy had one latch onto his crutch at Byron Bay about 18 months ago. It was still attached when they got him to hospital a hour and a half later - ooooch

[brembo]

'Tis a face only a mother could love! After watching those fishing shows on TV rattling on about how dangerous those Wobby's can be you'd be hard pressed getting me near one of them.

[Mal]

Number two is great, Clean Crisp and Sharp.
IMHO one of the first things to do in PP is use the cloning tool get rid of all of the "extras" in the water that are near the teeth and gums.

[mudder]

Wow I never realised Wobby's had a gob like that!

Re: PP I just had a quick play for a minute (literally) was just a quickie, just some basic selected curves and levels, some high-pass filter sharpening, a little sat on the gums and cleaning up the stray bits in the mouth area, let me know and I'll delete...

Cheers and thanks for posting, love those pearly whites!!!

Cheers.

[phillipb]

I would love someone to have a go at improving these images in PS. My skills there are seriously lacking. Comments welcome.

Well Steve, I had a go but I didn't necessarily improve things.
I though I would try to put a bit more enphasis on those vicious looking teeth.



Edit. Andrew beat me to it.

[huynhie]

That is one ugly shark.


Do you think these guys taste good with sweet and sour sauce

[BBJ]

Thats a mean looking wobly, but still a good capture and i like seeing his teeth and wide open mouth. Good pics.

[avkomp]

nice images.
wonder what housing you are using for this shot.

Steve

[SteveGriffin]

Steve,
Same old same old
Ikelite housing with 2 x DS-125 strobes. Full manual, still saving for the iTTL back

[avkomp]

I used to get up the tweed way quite often as my uncle lives there and I went up as often as possible to surf and dive.
regettably I dont get much time for that these days.

One dive up there at palm beach reef my dive buddy ( a woman they paired me up with on the boat) had her regulator fall apart when we got to the bottom. Got interesting when she panicked and forgot about her occy and was off to the surface like a missile.
had to pin her to the bottom and give her mine. after calming her down I showed her that she had a spare and all was well. apparently she has never dived again.
I Used to like getting out to cook island as well.
oh well, perhaps in my next life.......

Steve

[Dug]

And people say they don't bite !!!

they are one of the few sharks that can reach their own tail and have bitten many divers who play with them.

My only shark attack was buy a port jackson shark on a night dive.

[avkomp]

the only shark attack I witnessed was during a night dive also.
A friend of mine was annoying a wobby and it turned around and grabbed on of his fins. took ages before it deciided to let go too.
Served him right

Steve

[marcotrov]

They are both insightful view of wobbygong beahviour that you don't often see, that in itself is noteworthy. The second one is a beauty with great sharpness and highlighting their armoury. I agree with Andrew and Phillip a little more contrast to get that 'Pop' will improve it.
cheers
marco

[SteveGriffin]

I cleaned the little guys mouth as suggested, Increased the saturation in the mouth and increased the contrast a bit. Is that better??

[kinetic]

No, he's still scarey looking!
Great pics. Do you find it's easier or harder to hold the camera steady under water? On the plus side, you have water supporting the weight of the camera, but on the minus side, there's the movement of the water.... just curious.

[Manta]

Great shots Steve; I don't see any dire need to post-process.

I've had two close calls with wobbies and have a very healthy respect for them. Both were on night dives and in neither case did I see the buggers. I've had a nice chunk taken out of a fin that could have easily been a chunk out of my foot. Very few "placid" looking fish can react as fast.

[SteveGriffin]

Kinetic,
despite weighing in at nearly 6kg the housing and strobes are very close to neutrally bouyant so it isn't heavy but the whole assembly is quite bulky and has a certain amount of inertia. The macro setup isn't too bad to handle but the wide angle setup where the strobes are 27 inches either side of the lens is a monster in any sort of surge.
It looks a bit like a battleship coming through the water too!