Photographer Scott Portelli stumbled on a unique natural phenomenon on a recent trip to Tonga. He tells the story of how he managed to capture this remarkable image.
It had been a long day out on the water, and we were heading back to our home base at Vava’u, Tonga. As the boat headed into the calmer waters of Neiafu Harbour we were greeted by the most remarkable sight – thousands of spots of purple of all different sizes below the surface of the water. A plague of cauliflower jellyfish were rising from the depths across the entire harbour as far as I could see. A spectacular sight to say the least!
We stopped the boat and I slipped into the water with my camera, still in its housing from the previous shoot. While the sight of thousands of brightly coloured jellyfish looked amazing above the surface, it was even more spectacular underwater as the light danced between the translucent slow-moving gelatinous bodies. In 10 years of visiting Tonga I have never seen anything like it.
I took a breath and free dived beneath the jellyfish to position myself between the jellyfish and the low setting sun. In the shot I was able to capture the light and the detail as the beams pierced the translucent body of the jellyfish. This was one of those days where it paid to get into the water one last time – even at the end of a long and exhausting day.
Details: Canon EOS 5D MKII, 15mm F/2.8 fisheye lens, f18 @ 1/320S, ISO 320, underwater housing.
Photo by Scott Portelli.
(Article first published in Australian Photography + digital, March 2013.)
