I met with Al and Kim in Smoky Lake earlier this month to lend a more "professional" hand capturing the vast amount and variety of fish they own and breed.....
I am not very familiar with the pet fish world but I am pretty sure most of these were angle fish. Many of them imported from other countries and worth a lot of money. They had quite the professional set up where most of the fish were kept in "pairs" until they had offspring. The fish would then be sold to a wholesaler and from there, your local pet store ;)
Taking pictures of fish was no easy task. If you are a photographer I am sure you can sympathize with the low low light inside a basement only to be supplemented with fluorescent bulbs. Most of the tanks were tinted blue on top of this leaving me with an almost impossible aqua color to deal with in post production. I had to shoot high ISO (story of my life) and work hard to try and diminish noise afterwards as well. I attempted flash but everything just looked unnatural and it also lit up all of the sediment in the tank and reflected off the fish. On top of all of this the fish were moving constantly and don't really respond to "here little fishy fishy fishy..." Alright, thats enough complaining. I won't even bother telling you about the big apertures I had to use which limited my depth of field to one fish in focus at a time.... sigh.
But, it was a great new super fun awesome experience. A new challenge that pushed my equipment, knowledge, and post production skills to the max. If I could do it again, I would do things a little differently but am still very satisfied how things turned out despite my uphill battles! I hope you like!
Kurt
Nice looking fish. Do you have contact information?
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