Macro Photography in Utila: Part I

Utila, one of the Bay Islands in Honduras, offers fantastic diving, welcoming people, diverse culture and amazing natural beauty. It’s also a great place to hone, or even begin to develop, your macro photography skills. Best of all, you needn’t be a skilled photographer to start practicing macro photography in this island paradise.

Brad Ryon, Utila transplant and owner of Re/Max Realty on the island, was not always a macro photographer.  Even now, it’s still only a hobby, when he’s not showing properties or hosting camera crews filming for HGTV.  However, he has perfected his macro talent on Utila, becoming a photographer we much admire.

Ryon began diving as a youngster, certifying at 18. He pursued his passion for the marine world by working in Hawaii as a marine-mammal biologist and doing coral studies on Glover Reef in the mid-90s. He used telephoto lenses and dabbled in some macro, though mostly above water. So why Utila?

Looking up into the floating weeds and debris you will often find great subjects for macro photos. After taking the photo, I decided that by re-orienting it to be upside down it made for a more interesting look. Simply rotating your photo can have a dramatic effect. Shot with: Canon Powershot G15 F2.5 1/1000 ISO 100 15mm

Many eels are curious and if you are patient they often will approach your lens on their own. Shooting from an upward angle and focusing on the teeth rather than the eyes draws you into the eel’s mouth. Shot with: Canon Powershot G15 F8 1/2000 ISO 80 30mm

An unusual sighting makes this close-up photo fairly rare. Using a slower shutter speed allowed me to get a brighter shot, showing more details of the eggs and their contents. Shot with: Canon Powershot G15 F8 1/125 ISO 80 23mm

By using an underwater flashlight and setting a fast shutter speed at 1/2000, I got a well-lit and crisp photo in a very hard-to-reach octopus lair. And showing parts of the adult female octopus helps identify where the eggs are from. Shot with: Canon Powershot G15 F8 1/2000 ISO 80 22mm

With such bold colors and unusual eyes, mantis shrimp always make interesting subjects. Focusing on the eyes and letting the surroundings be in- and out-of-focus naturally creates a sense of depth. Shot with: Canon Powershot G15 F8 1/2000 ISO 80 30mm +10 Diopter

Being in the right place at the right time is sometimes the key, so go slow and scan your surroundings to find those unusual opportunities. Shooting with a very fast shutter speed and pointing the camera upward into the water gave me a black background to make the colors pop. Shot with: Canon Powershot G15 F2.5 1/1000 ISO 80 12mm

A great place to find subjects is underneath docks and along walls where many creatures seek shelter. Instead of getting super-close to capture the details, I used the contrasting colors to capture the easily identifiable shape of the seahorse. Shot with: Canon Powershot G15 F2.5 1/125 ISO 80 12mm

I shot this with the magnifying lens to capture the close-up details of a very small fish. Keeping the shutter speed high froze the action and preventing blurring that normally would occur. Shot with: Canon Powershot G15 F8 1/2000 ISO 80 30mm +10 Diopter

Why try macro photography in Utila?

As the story goes with many who end up here, Ryon planned to spend three days on Utila during a Central American vacation. He left two weeks later after buying property. Once established on the island, Ryon turned his attention to what drew him here in the first place: the marine world and photography.

What can you see in Utila?

The Mesoamerican Reef offers fantastic diversity in general, but Utila offers significant diversity in a very small area.  There is diving right off shore anywhere around the island.  Simply wade into the water and you’re on world-class dive sites and healthy reefs.  For example, Little Little Bight (not to be confused with Little Bight nearby) and Jack Neil Point, on the south shore, are good for photography because of the mixed environment of patch reef, sand, gravel, and wall that support lots of different creatures.  You will find hard and soft corals, small blennies, gobies, wrasses, tarpon, barracuda, jack and cobia, eagle and stingrays, sharks and octopus, just to name a few.

The waters are calm most of the time and the diving is easy around Utila, so you don’t have to go deep.  In fact, when Ryon first arrived, he had to snorkel because he had no tanks or a compressor, so he was always in 15 feet of water or less.

How amazing can Utila’s macro life be? Ryon has, on three separate occasions, found an octopus nest with females guarding eggs.  The best photos came from 50 dives over six weeks. During his dives, he photographed the growth of the embryos in their eggs until they hatched. Obviously, an extended vacation may be in order. But Utila nonetheless affords a novice photographer the opportunity to photograph a huge variety of subjects.

In our next article, we’ll dive a bit more deeply into the technical aspects of macro photography on Utila. We’ll also offer some tips and tricks from Ryon on how to get started. Stay tuned!