This November we joined ten good friends to visit Tulamben, Bali, Indonesia again for the second annual “Ocean Canvas” underwater photography workshop.

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Tulamben, Bali, Indonesia

Tulamben is one of the best places in the world to see a wide diversity of small and wonderful nudibranchs, shrimps, octopus and more.

A thriving collection of dive centres and modest resorts line the waterfront, which is a series of black lava stone beaches formed by millennia of eruptions from Mount Agung.

A small economy of diving-centered services supports a great number of people, including expert photography guides, whose skills and appreciation for the finer points of ‘macro’ (small subject) photography are truly impressive.

Photography Workshop

Underwater photography is big in Tulamben, with many wonders and awards won here, cementing it as a mecca for worldwide lovers of ‘macro’ (and micro) sea life.

The first ‘Ocean Canvas’ workshop was organized in 2023. This new traveling workshop consisted of a keen group of photographers spending about a week focused on exploring various diving sites within a short radius, shuttled around in the back of compact trucks.

Each drive-up beach is furnished with covered platforms and some kind of rudimentary freshwater shower.

Upon entering the water, we found shallow sand and stones teeming with little fish and the odd coral or sponges, giving way to sand or ‘rubble’ slopes packed with little surprises.

The Divers’ Canvas

We slowly perused the lava sand and rubble slopes below Tulamben’s many beaches for interesting photographic specimens, following the local guides who have intimate knowledge of what’s been seen there, as well as very sharp instincts to find anything unexpected.

A fascinating tube anemone in the sand slope

Exotic diversity

During this year’s (2024) workshop, I was intent to use an iNaturalist project to track and share some of the things that we observed.

The many shores of Desa Tulamben, with some of our many observations pinned in red.

We weren’t actually the first to think of doing this–there is also a Sea Slug Census project!

That project also charted a custom boundary for Tulamben sea life to filter for all observations: iNat: Tulamben (underwater)

I wrote a lite webapp (in Angular) to peruse highlights from the API more enjoyably on mobile devices.

The subjects

Here are a few of the amazing things we found on the slopes of Tulamben shores:

Super-‘macro’ photography

A large number of extremely interesting things in the ocean are very small, and easily missed by the casual eye or typical camera.

We collectively arrived equipped with a range of the latest in camera offerings, including strong representation by Sony and OM System models, and all ranges of lens and sensor sizes.

Even the TG-7 amazed us, in the hands of avid divers and vacationing scientists. I wrote a bit more on the subject of macro photography here and here.

A tiny wasp-spine velvetfish--those are sand grains, not pebbles!

A tiny ghost shrimp (Isopontonia?) appears to dwarf large epiphytic diatoms

Creature features

Shrimp (Caridea)

Several vibrantly decorated shrimp were located by expert guides, whose skills include helping us to get close and attractive angles without unnecessarily handling or harming them.

%!i(int=253149326) Spiny Tiger Shrimp — Spiny Tiger Shrimp

%!i(int=252861760) Algae Shrimp — Algae Shrimp

%!i(int=253174409) Pink Tattoo Shrimp — Pink Tattoo Shrimp

[more] ‘Sea slugs’

Nudibranchs, snails, and other sea slugs famous for their variety and colors seem limitlessly available on Tulamben dives, offering up stunning imagery for new and experienced photographers alike.

A photogenic Phyllodesmium iriomotense near the Liberty wreck

Crabs

%!i(int=253950280) Thorny Elbow Crab — Thorny Elbow Crab

%!i(int=252861751) Harlequin Swimming Crab — Harlequin Swimming Crab

A baby crab, still in the 'megalops' phase (according to iNat)

Cephalopods

%!i(int=253978157) Broadclub Cuttlefish — Broadclub Cuttlefish

%!i(int=253402528) Indo-Pacific Longarm Octopuses — Indo-Pacific Longarm Octopuses

…and more

%!i(int=253174407) Jawfishes — Jawfishes

%!i(int=253954458) Spiny Seahorse — Spiny Seahorse

%!i(int=253489626) Warty Anglerfish — Warty Anglerfish

Drifting in the night

Many divers know that nightfall brings a new shift of animals out on the reefs and sea bottoms, but we now can also explore and appreciate what happens at the top of the water column when darkness falls.

“Blackwater” diving is done many ways in many places; the way it’s done in Tulamben via the small and swift jukungs of local fishermen left us feeling fresh and adventurous.

A bigfin reef squid came to visit on a leashless jukung blackwater dive

A curious tiny flying fish, offshore at night (blackwater dive)

A free-swimming larval anemone (not an octopus)

%!i(int=253402536) Longspined Porcupinefish — Longspined Porcupinefish

…and reefs

While macro photographers often don’t spend as much time on coral reef walls, assisted reef structures dot the sandy bottoms of bays, and most beaches end in steep lava points adorned with cascading coral and sponge reefs awash in daily tides and currents.