Cleaning station

The Cleaning Station

Taking dramatic images of fish interacting with cleaner shrimps and cleaner wrasse can be exciting and rewarding while frustrating and very consuming of available dive time. This short story relates to my approach to working at a single cleaning station while shore diving in Eriyadu Island in the north male atoll Maldives during late May 2005.

Together with my partner Heather we had decided to opt for an unlimited 24 hour shore diving package that would allow us two hour long shallow dives to enable us to spend more time on selected subjects.

Once we had checked out the house reef at all five entry points around the island, we soon agreed that for macro and cleaning station photography, the 110 entry point next to our bungalow would provide all we needed without the efforts of moving cameras and dive kit to other points around the island. The dive centre compressor room boys obligingly delivered tanks to us three times a day at the times we had set on their notice board.

We have always found that cleaning stations tend to be at their busiest in the early hours of daylight, so our first dive of the days was always set for six thirty just after those beautiful Indian Ocean sunrises.

By day three I had selected a particular section of reef to concentrate on, it was at a reasonable depth of twenty one metres, it was not the shallowest but it had no less than five cleaning stations that were popular with the large resident population of vivid red coral trout.

As several dives came and went, I realised that the size and numbers of cleaner shrimps resident in the cleaning stations varied dramatically with the largest holes having many shrimps that were always small and generally lacking in any colour.

Medium sized stations tended to have fewer but larger and more colourful cleaner shrimps whilst the smallest station had just one mature bright red and white cleaner shrimp of the same species, that I am quite sure had seen off all of its rivals.

This guy was quite a character that always waited for its customer on the same high level ledge within its station. My first observation was that if a coral trout entered the station and stayed facing inward it would be ignored by the shrimp and was of no interest to my camera. Only when it turned around and facing outwards did the coral trout receive its required cleaning attention

My second observation was that a coral trout that stayed at the bottom of the station was also ignored. This rather bossy shrimp demanded that the trout rise upwards before it would hop on to clean it I experimented with my fingers and sure enough they too were ignored until lifted to the top of the station at which point the shrimp would hop on and clean my nails.

So here we have a cleaner shrimp that cleans only at the top of its station on coral trout that must be facing outwards from it. A rare opportunity to work with an open mouthed Coral Trout in a predictable location that worked well for the camera; I began to achieve some very pleasing images of this fascinating marine life interaction,

I noticed that by my fifth completed session on this cleaning station that the coral trout were becoming far more accepting of my presence at this station to the extent that they were brushing passed my ear to enter into it. I had been working with the more candid 105mm macro lens so as not to disturb my subjects, but at this point decided that my next early morning session would be completed using a 60mm macro lens, to reduce the water column and create better colour saturation and definition.

Overnight while reviewing a large number of images taken I also realised that whilst by selecting the biggest of the cleaner shrimps I had created better pictures, I had perhaps been making the mistake of waiting for the largest coral trout to compliment it. So the next morning armed with my 60mm lens and a wealth of hindsight information, I returned to my subjects and waited for the smallest coral trout to brush past my ear, turn within the station, and rise to the top and present a very fine and sharp set of teeth to the large shrimp for its attention.

It probably took just thirty minutes to get this shot in the can following five fascinating hours of bottom time learning about my subjects and their potential. I was delighted with my final picture and pleased as punch at its recognition by winning the Bsoup splash-in overseas print competition.

So if you want some exciting cleaning station images, be prepared to watch and learn more about your chosen subjects on dive trips where you can return time and time again to those subjects and I am sure that you will improve greatly on your original pictures

TO QUOTE THE OLD CLICHÉS: EFFORT IN = RESULTS OUT

ALAN JAMES