I've found myself thinking back to my Wakatobi trip a lot recently. I really long to be slowly sinking below the surface of some crystal clear blue water, camera in hand, ready to go find some interesting reef inhabitant.

We saw plenty of these Reef Lizardfish (Synodus variegatus) on almost every dive. Most were in the range of 8-10 inches in length and would sit motionless on top of outcroppings. In general, they would let you approach within a few feet of them before they darted off to hide, so getting relatively close like this was not too challenging as long as you moved in slowly.

As you can see, they had tons of sharp little curved teeth that despite being tiny were kind of impressively intimidating. That, coupled with their jaw structure illustrates that they are an ambush predator. They lie still waiting for an unsuspecting fish to swim a little too close, then - *WHAM!* - lunge forward with that large mouth, using those curved teeth (much like a lizard) to keep their prey from escaping.

Cool little fish.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/170th sec at f/8. Image Stabilization on. ISO 500 (Auto). Ikelite Housing and Port with Ikelite 161 Strobe in TTL Mode. Auto-smartfix and Removed Color Cast in Photoshop Elements 8.0 (mouseover for original)

Why This Photo: As I said, I was quite impressed with those teeth, and they help to give the fish its lizard like namesake, so I wanted to capture a shot that showed those teeth in particular.

What Works: The focus is right on the fish's eye, and more importantly on those razor sharp teeth. The varying diagonal lines (the reef shelf, the lizard fish's back, its jawline, etc) continuously lead the viewer's eyes through the frame and back again.

What Doesn't Work: The aperture could have been stopped down just a little more (perhaps to f/11) for more depth of field to show more of the fish in focus - though just enough to keep the head in focus to avoid there being distracting elements to take away from the teeth being the main point of interest. Also, potentially a horizontal format would have worked better for this long fish.

As a bonus, I have several other shots of these fish to share... though, for some reason, I liked to cut off their tails from the shots. I don't know why, but looking through all of my lizardfish shots, they are pretty much all like that. Guess I'll have to go back and try it again... ;) Just mouseover the thumbnail to display the larger version.

And as you can see, I also apparently only approach these fish from their right sides... Weird. Anyway, what I was trying to illustrate was the variety in their colors... ranging from light tan, to dark brown, and even to a bright red.

Like I said, cool little fish.

- Bill