Luck? I don't think so

"There is no luck in photography, those lucky shots you think they are, their photographers just do more shots than you."

A common jellyfish with an uncommon passenger

I always remember what my underwater photography senior/mentor William Tan said: "Never throw away bad pictures, keep them for awhile. You might want to use them for a reason."

In my journey, I've made some shots that I almost throw them away until I saw the details on a bigger screen (and, yes I meant BIG screen for my -not so- old eyes :p ). 

First photo above I made in Kakaban stingless jellyfish lake (one of 3 in the world). I took so many shots that day and this one just looked so common. I almost delete it when I saw that little isopod attached to the jellyfish. I zoomed it in, and I got in on focus! Was I lucky?

Yes, Your Highness

I can hear you, LOUDLY

I was so happy when first time I met the cutest nudibranch: the "Pikachu" (Thecacera pacifica). It was on a night dive in Kupang. This one was so small and has very interesting colors. I took tens of photograph of it, and that is when I got these two photos of the Pikachu with a friend.

The one above is the pikachu bows to a fish embryo. And the one on the right is the pikachu with an isopod on its tentacle.

Hovering 

The photo on the left I have when I tried to make photograph of a nudibranch with focus only on its tentacles. I saw that little "bug" hovering around the tentacles, I positioned myself for a right angle and waited for the bug to "place himself". I got it!

This last photo (right) also one of the photos that was almost went into my Trash bin. To photograph a Pontohi pigmy seahorse (Hippocampus pontohi) really needs patience. It is very small (less than 2cm) and very shy to the light. To have them facing your lens will take tens of minutes. I will be happy enough to be able to photograph it on one side and get one eye in focus. On this photo, I got it on one side... but NOT focused on its eye. "Lucky" I got it focus on an embryo of a shrimp that was playing on the seahorses eye.

So, was I lucky? Or I just did so many shots that allows me to have these "lucky" photographs? 

Ah, never mind... I will just do more and more shots .... to get lucky :D