Description

It may not be the most fascinating critter in the ocean, it certainly is not rare, but the night I found it crawling around on bright yellow polyps I had to stop and see if I could make this remarkably unremarkable crab a little more interesting.

It was a relatively simple shot, it was a night dive, I had my big lights with me and all I needed was for him to get into a position where the backdrop would be the black of the ocean at night. After a brief wait he started moving up toward the yellow polyps, that was my time to strike with the camera, I wanted to contrast his vibrant reds with the bright yellows of the coral polyps, then have his white shell against the blackened background.

I took quite a few photos of this guy, but this is the photo I choose to share because he has his eyes poking out and you can clearly see more of his body than you can in my other shots, so I feel that even though there is less yellow polyps in this shot, the visibility and clarity of what exists inside the shell of a hermit crab greatly makes up for it.