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Choosing a Site for Photography
Not all great dive sites make great photographs. Visibility, light angle, wildlife predictability, and the ability to hover without surge all matter as much as what is actually there. A site with exceptional marine life in poor visibility or surge produces frustrated photographers. The eight sites on this list score high across all dimensions.
1. Lembeh Strait, Indonesia — Macro
The global benchmark for macro photography. The black volcanic sand background is a photographer's gift — every subject pops against it. The density and variety of rare critters is unmatched: mimic octopus, flamboyant cuttlefish, hairy frogfish, blue-ringed octopus, and hundreds of nudibranch species. A week in Lembeh with a good guide will produce macro images that would take months to replicate elsewhere.
2. Blue Corner, Palau — Wide-Angle
Hook in at the current-swept reef edge and wait. Walls of barracuda, grey reef sharks banking in the blue, eagle rays in formation, Napoleon wrasse the size of coffee tables. The predictability of the animal life at Blue Corner (combined with gin-clear visibility on good days) makes it ideal for wide-angle wildlife photography.
3. Hanifaru Bay, Maldives — Wide-Angle
The manta and whale shark feeding aggregations at Hanifaru during the southwest monsoon season (June–November) are the most spectacular wildlife assemblages in tropical diving. Photographing a manta barrel-rolling through a plankton bloom, with two more mantas intersecting the frame, is an image that cannot be staged anywhere else on Earth.
4. SS Thistlegorm, Egypt — Wreck
The WWII wreck photography classic. The holds containing military equipment — motorcycles, trucks, weapons — are accessible and well-lit from the hatches above during midday dives. The scale of the wreck and the preservation of artefacts make for compelling subjects that a standard reef dive cannot provide.
5. Richelieu Rock, Thailand — Macro and Wide-Angle
A pinnacle that provides both: harlequin shrimps on sea stars, ghost pipefish in crinoids, and seahorses for macro; whale sharks and barracuda tornadoes for wide-angle. The diversity of subjects on a single site — combined with the quality of light in the Andaman Sea — makes Richelieu Rock one of the most photographed dive sites in Southeast Asia.
6. Cenotes of Yucatán, Mexico — Ambient Light
No underwater photography style exploits light quite like cenote photography. The shafts of morning light penetrating through the jungle cave openings create surreal columns in the water that combine with the clarity of fresh water (often 100+ metres) to produce images unlike anything achievable in salt water. No fish required.
7. Poor Knights Islands, New Zealand — Temperate Wide-Angle
For photographers who don't associate New Zealand with diving: the Poor Knights Islands Marine Reserve, off the Northland coast, contains extraordinary subtropical marine life with temperate water clarity. The Rikoriko Cave — the world's largest sea cave — creates unique interior ambient light. Large schools of demoiselles, blue maomao, and trevally; occasional orca.
8. Anilao, Philippines — Macro
Lembeh's closest Philippine equivalent, with distinct advantages: the substrate is more varied (a mix of coral rubble, sand, and reef), the species list overlaps with Lembeh but includes species found nowhere else, and the population of specialist critter-finding guides is exceptional. Nudibranchs are the standout — Anilao has produced more new nudibranch species records than perhaps any site in the Philippines.