Horizon Charters, San Diego | Liveaboard diving Channel Islands and offshore Baja Mexico

Digital Imaging for the U/W Photographer
Digital Imaging for the Underwater Photographer is the definitive guide to using digital technology to produce stunning underwater images. The Drafahls present the basics on using scanners, hardware and software, printers and film recorders. The information presented in the beginning of this book serves as a primer for the advanced tips that fill the balance of the book. Readers will learn how to balance color on their monitors, adjust contrast and brightness, reduce grain and repair flaws. Image composition and archival data storage is covered as well.

Jack Drafahl and Sue Drafahl are a husband and wife team of professional undersea journalists, lecturers and multimedia producers. They have written over 500 articles, which have appeared in, amongst others, Petersen’s PhotoGraphic, Rangefinder, Photo Lab Management, Outdoor Photographer, and National Geographic. Sue holds a BA in Photographic Communication; Jack holds a Masters degree in Photographic Education. They have patented two inventions related to underwater photography. Both Jack and Sue teach seminars worldwide on all aspects of photography, both on land and underwater.

The Drafahl's will be features seminar speakers at SCUBA Show 2002, June 29-30 at the Long Beach Convention Center.

For more information, contact Amherst Media, phone 800-622-3278 or visit their website http://www.AmherstMedia.com.

Realm of the Pygmy Seahorse
Award-winning photographer Constantinos Petrinos, chose the Lembeh Strait in North Sulawesi, Indonesia to document this fascinating underwater wonderland. He spent 5 months in the region, did 320 dives and took 25,000 slides. Realm of the Pygmy Seahorse features 280 of these amazing photographs. Underwater photographers will find a wealth of information on technique. For the naturalist, the rich text explains the spectacular behavior seen in the photographs.

Constantinos takes you by the hand and introduces you to the many unique and fascinating wonders of the Straits. To say that a whole new world unfolds is an understatement. That which first appears as simply a large colorful coral head, now reveals dozens of inhabitants and relationships, previously over looked.

Constantinos’ underwater sojourns will introduce you to what many of us refer to as the fascinating “muck” dive, an experience you will want to repeat over and over. Little could we imagine that there was so much to discover by swimming away from the brightly colored creations blossoming from the patch reef, and venture out over sand bottoms, often in areas where the visibility wanes from that boasted in vacation resort brochures. It is here that Constantinos will treat you to Bob Tail Squid and the amazing Wonderpus. Tiny pygmy seahorses adorn Muricella sea fans. Spectacular nudibranchs are everywhere.

For more information, contact Sea Challengers Natural History Books, Etc., phone 925-327-7750 or visit their website at http://www.seachallengers.com.

The Blue Edge
In The Blue Edge, his most powerful book yet, Carlos Eyles shares his unique grasp of the ocean wilderness on a journey to the once prolific Sea of Cortez he explored as a free diver over thirty years ago. As he works down the Baja coast, Carlos documents the plight of the sea and its sad decline in the last three decades.

Searching for the bounty and majesty of a sea he once knew, he continues 250 miles south of Baja to the rugged and primordal volcanic San Benedicto Island in the Revillagigedos Archipelago. Here on the blue edge he takes the reader on breath-hold dives into an extremely dangerous yet magical realm of great fish and sharks by the thousands, soaring manta rays, and breaching whales.

Carlos Eyles became deeply connected to the ocean world as a child growing up on the beaches of Hawaii, and in The Blue Edge—his eighth book—he describes his deep intimacy and almost mystical interaction with the sea’s creatures. His life, first as a free-diving big game spearfisherman and now as an underwater photographer, has covered much of this planet’s oceans and seas—a lifetime journey, which has also paralleled the decline of the ocean’s great wealth.

Sixteen black and white photographs, some from the center of a school of hammerhead sharks on a breath-hold dive at 75 feet, others of circling 12-foot galapagos sharks, majestic mantas, and a breaching whale accompany the text.

The Blue Edge is available at book stores, dive centers, on the internet, or directly from the publisher: Aqua Quest Publications, phone 800-933-8989, internet http://www.aquaquest.com.