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Friday, September 18, 2009

Mike Laptew strikes again

Now, if you like fishing and fish in general and you don’t know who Mike Laptew is you are missing something. Mike, apart from being a very good friend of mine, is a breed among a seal (don’t take it personally Mike, nothing to do with the size of your waist), a Striped Bass, Richard Attenborough and some sort of Yankee.

He’s a photographer and a film maker. He is one of my teachers, the only one who could give me serious advise about fishing photography (Focus on the eye of the fish Nicola, if the eye is focused the picture is good!). He’s also a fisherman and he dives. Or is a diver and he fishes … Dunno, but the fact is that he knows one thing or two about finned critters. He’s based is Narragansett Bay, RI but he travels the world quite extensively so one day you might find him in some tropical waters, swimming with Whale Sharks or filming a school of Sailfish.

Having spent some …her…., don’t know how many years in the water, and when I mean IN I really mean inside it, he has become an expert on the behaviour of many different species of fish. Striped Bass, Flukes, Bluefish, you name it. Thus, the other day, when we were on the phone he told me this amazing story that I will report to you in the best possible way, through his killer photos.

These are Mike’s word describing these images:

“These images show two of the varied approaches they make as they make a strafing run on the small bay anchovies they were feeding on. Otherwise, they are in the tight ball formation you see in the third shot “Blue Angels”… oftentimes they are in a more fish-like, football shape (American football) which is probably as effective a defensive posture as it is an offensive formation.”

Mike told me he stayed with those False Albacores for 90 minutes. Had time to go back to shore, cancel some bad shots, go back again and take some more 50 photos. Imagine how difficult this is with such fast running pelagic fish that also have keen eyesight and don’t like too much being messing with people around, but this time Mike has been blessed with a true National Geographic feature and took full advantage of it.

Thanks my friend, is a great honour for me to be able to post your stuff here.

See more stuff from Mike in his website: www.laptewproductions.com

He’s also in Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/mike.laptew?ref=name

Mike is working on a new video, chek the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwD5Opz35zA&feature=player_embedded

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

...if the eye is focused the picture is good! Ummmm... Good trick! I`m going to try! The scene of those false albacoras is amazing! How this guy can take a photo of a pelagic fish?