About Best of Bali with Martyn

Photo workshop in Bali

Villa Markisa are one of Bali's premier photo dive centres and have hosted many photographers over the years - they really know how to support photographers in and out of the water. Martyn has stayed in the Tulumban area before and have dived in Bali on several occasions. "Bali is an amazing and relaxed place a. The house reefs - Seraya Secrets and Noisy reef are probably the best that I have dived with excellent macro subjects to photograph. Once we have all been briefed by the dive guides we can pretty much dive as we want and will have the opportunity to do multiple dives on the same subjects."

Goals of the trip

The trip is planned for both macro and wide-angle photography. Hands on instruction will be provided through evening group image reviews and presentations as well as underwater instruction for those needing it. Sue is also happy to model for anyone that wants and some of the opportunities on the Liberty are improved dramatically with a diver in the shot!

Relaxed group image processing on laptops is encouraged for those interested as this provides an excellent opportunity to learn new processing techniques. Martyn says that he learned almost all of his Lightroom and Photoshop processing tweaks from photographic trips sitting with other photographers in the evenings admiring their work and watching their processing over a drink or two.

Marine life highlights

The diving package included with the workshop is as follows:
16 boat dives including 3 dives at Ahmed
8 house reef dives

The first early dive in the morning is normally on the Liberty wreck, which was beached (after being torpedoed by the Japanese in WW2 in 1942) by the American navy and was then lifted closer to shore during a volcanic eruption in 1963. The wreck is reached by speedboat in about 10 minutes from the resort and this means that we can be one of the first groups of divers each day and late in the afternoon when other dive groups have departed. The wreck is home to a resident shoal of large bump head parrotfish and often there is a huge shoal of jacks drifting in the blue and occasionally coming right across the wreck. Everything is festooned in beautiful soft corals and is home to a huge variety of marine life including morays, anemone fish, anthias and pygmy sea horses and other reef fish as well as many other macro subjects. Wide angle and macro shots can be taken and we will have lots of opportunities for both.

The house reef is a veritable treasure trove. During the summer months, harlequin shrimps move onto the house reef, feasting on feather stars. There are ghost pipefish all over many of the dive sites, including the house reef. Razor fish are in the shallows, hairy squat lobsters on the sponges and zebra crabs. There are loads of nudibranchs on all the sites. Keep your eyes peeled for skeleton shrimp. You are welcome to dive here for as long as you like, for a max of up to 4 dives over a single day (including night dives).

The wide angle reef diving at Ahemd blew me away. The reefs are so rich and impressive sea fans are beautiful subjects.

Who is this workshop suitable for

It is designed for photographers with some experience and who will probably be using housed DSLR’s or mirrorless systems. You don’t need to be a pro already but you will be looking to improve your images and you will definitely have the opportunity to brush up on your skills and learn some new ones. For example the trip will enable participants to learn from basic camera settings if required to macro and wide-angle lighting techniques including snooting and back lighting as well as mastering super macro. Everyone should be able to return home with a great and varied portfolio of images.

As Martyn says, "from my experience of going on many of these type of trips over the years you get out what you put in but having said that the guests are on holiday and so if they prefer to nod off during a talk or not turn up because they didn’t wake up after the last dive - its not an issue for me. The other point to make is that this is a trip for photographers so the resort and I will ensure that we are put on the right sites at the right time and that we repeat the dive where possible as many times as necessary in order to get the shot”