The Silence

The sea is rarely completely calm. Even in the quietest and windless weather, waves are rolling to the shore. And this silence is very important. Not only for shooting, but for the photographer himself.



But sometimes it happens. Everything freezes. Even the seagulls stop shouting at that moment. This silence affects more than many other manifestations of nature. It seems that time ceases to flow.



Kunashir(South Kuril islands). The island is famous for its fogs and bad weather. And suddenly the sea is calm. We are at the seal rookery. Seals, as always rest, after the morning activity. And only we move around the surface of the water, like unnatural dark spots. We can not wait.



We only have a few days to shoot in this amazing and inaccessible place. And only a few hours in the water. Of the three weeks of the expedition this is very small. For the sake of these hours and minutes, we were preparing for almost a year. Received permits from the border guards and agreed with the nature reserve. It took several months.


After all, the border is really very close. So it looks like the shore of Hokkaido from Kunashir.

From Kunashir to Hokkaido, it was only 15 kilometers in this place by sea. If desired, I probably could swim on the fins. But we are interested in seals. Here they are two kinds: the common or harbor seal of the lagga, and the antur(Kurill or Stejneger seal).



In addition, there are no people here. One inspector of the reserve and four photographers. Somewhere far away on the berg in the distance is a border post. But it's a few dozen kilometers of wild coast. There are poachers more often than border guards. There are many more animals here. On the shore there are foxes and bears. In the sea of seals. And if you're lucky, you can see whales and whales.



Therefore, we break the silence and swim to our seals. With such water, there is a chance to take pictures in half a water (split). This is a great chance for us. After all, such silence can only be a few minutes. And then the wind will blow and it will rain. It almost every day goes to Kunashir.

It's all the same to us, we are still in the water. But the rain is bad for filming. It makes water less transparent. On this we must hurry, excuse us Silence.



Far East, Okhotsk sea. Kunashir.
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My equipment: Canon 5Dmk2 + Canon 15mm fish eye + Nexus underwater housing+ 2 Inon 240strobes.
More details about my underwater setup: https://steemit.com/@narchuk/me-and-my-equipment
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[//]:# (!steemitworldmap 43.828255 lat 145.390731 long The Silence d3scr)