Prints · Lembeh Strait · Limited edition of 20

Snake Eyes

Snake eel cleaner shrimp · Size 5 cm

The story · in my own words

A snake eel spends its day buried to the eyes in sand, and a head like this one is all a diver ever sees of an animal that may be a metre long beneath it. It breathes, watches, and waits for dark.

The shrimp on its head is not prey. Cleaner shrimp advertise with waving antennae, and fish that could swallow them whole instead hold still and let them work, picking parasites and dead skin from around the eyes and mouth.

The eel opened its mouth and the shrimp went to work. The frame is the two of them at the moment of trust. Lembeh Strait, north Sulawesi.

A snake eel, the Lembeh Strait.

$300Sizes below
01Choose a size
Limited edition of 20 · printed to order

Choose a size

Enquire about this edition · $300

Prices in US dollars; shipping is a flat $25 to Canada and the United States. Printed to order and shipped from Canada. Framing is not offered: shipping glass across a border is a bad idea for everyone.

02How it was made
How it was made · from the file

Eight lines from the dive

Exposure
ISO 100 · 1/250 · f20
Camera
1DX MKII + EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM
Housing
Nauticam 1DX MKII
Lighting
Dual Retra strobes, Gen I
Accessories
None
Technique
Snoot
Conditions
Particulate and surge
Visibility
10 m
The technique and lighting lines link to the craft articles that explain them. A dash means the record does not hold it, and I would rather show the gap than fill it.
03Where
Where · North Sulawesi

Photographed in Lembeh Strait

When you would see it in Lembeh Strait
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Copper is high season, grey is shoulder, a stub is closed. The same calendar the destination publishes.
Read the Lembeh Strait guide
04More from Lembeh Strait
More from Lembeh Strait

Postage is by the tube, not the sheet

Postage is the largest single cost in a print order, and it is charged by the tube. A second print travels in the same one.

A harlequin shrimp beside a frogfish, the Lembeh StraitHarlequin shrimp frogfish$300An Ambon scorpionfish against black water, the Lembeh StraitAmbon scorpionfish black$300A thorny seahorse in profile, the Lembeh StraitThorny seahorse profile$150A wonderpus with its arms up, the Lembeh StraitWonderpus arms$150A xeno crab on a whip coral, on coral, the Lembeh StraitXeno crab whip coral$150A juvenile cuttlefish in red, the Lembeh StraitJuvenile cuttlefish red$150