Seeing the Big Picture

Macro photographers flock to Lembeh Strait, Indonesia, for rare and remarkable little critters such as hairy frogfish, pygmy seahorses and mimic octopus. The biodiversity of weird and wonderful marine life is extraordinary, especially considering that much of this multitude thrives on the sandy (and at first glance barren) seabed habitat. This narrow waterway between the northeast tip of Sulawesi and neighboring Lembeh Island is where muck diving was born, and it has remained perennially popular for three decades.

I recently returned to Lembeh for the sixth time to once again search the silty slopes for Lilliputian beasties. But I also had an ulterior motive, as evidenced by the wide-angle lenses and pizza-sized glass dome port in my gear bags. I wanted to do something different this time. I hoped to experience a new side of Lembeh Strait, to see a bigger picture of this remarkable place.

Uncelebrated Classic Wall Diving

My eyes are wide in surprise—dozens of vibrant, orangey-red soft coral trees at 80 feet deep sprout from the current-washed wall at California Dreaming, a site on Lembeh Island’s northwestern flank. They glow like a sunset in the clearish (30-40 foot visibility) blue-green water. It’s a lovely piece of reef real estate, so worthy of wide-angle imaging.

After a flurry of photos we drift along to look at some more elegant sea fans and a barrel sponge large enough to climb into and is adorned with a family of feather stars. A sea turtle sporting a geometrically dazzling shell glides past us nonchalantly. Farther down there are flashes of silver, a school of something shimmering along the wall.

Where are we, Fiji? Raja Ampat? I struggle to comprehend how this impressive scenery has escaped my attention all these years.

Nearby, Pulau Putus is another pleasantly surprising, head-shaker of a stereotype-breaking Lembeh dive where we find clusters of tube sponges like artfully arranged upside-down chandeliers, a tiered garden of healthy table corals and hundreds of fusiliers streaming along the drop off. Multi-hued, velcro-armed feather stars are everywhere.

I’m sure they are home to symbiotic shrimps and squat lobsters, staple macro subjects in Lembeh, but I forgo taking a close-up look for the camouflaged crustaceans—I am quite content to focus on creating an entirely new portfolio of big-picture coral-reef seascapes with my fisheye lens.

Fearing that too much of a great thing too fast might draw the attention of capricious and vindictive sea gods, we did “normal” dives in the Strait the following day. Microscopic nudibranchs slugging around the rubble, coconut octopus in their portable clamshell condos and ghost pipefish hiding in plain sight were all on the menu.

We enjoyed our time with these diminutive local celebrities used to obligingly posing for portraits made with long macro lenses and high-magnification close-up diopters. It was a productive day photographically. But that itch scratched the day before was proving impossible to ignore. I wanted to go rogue again.

Wide on the Wild Side

Our guide suggested Lembeh Island’s eastern coastline. This outer side—the “wild side”—is much more exposed (i.e. weather dependent) than inside, well-protected Lembeh Strait proper. Wind, waves and current can scupper the best of intentions to explore this infrequently visited side of Lembeh, but our forecast was good so we set out for a full-day excursion with wide angle once again on my brain.

Hard corals are on fine display at Logos. Patches of whorled cabbage corals and knobbly potato corals are choice candidates for super-wide fisheye captures including my buddy, Melissa, in the frame. There’s also a nice field of staghorn coral in the shallows, over which green and blue chromis fish sparkle like gemstones in the sunlight.

Joko’s steep, stepping slope presents opportunities to follow and photograph stunning yellow-mask angelfish (Pomacanthus xanthometopon) with my zoom lens. Hundreds of juvenile convict fish hugging tight to the coral are feeding on passing plankton. After their meal, the entire school will disappear into the reef through a narrow split that leads back to their sheltering cave.

Related Reading: Tips for Taking Great Photos in Indonesia's Lembeh Strait

Pulau Dua proves our favorite of the day’s triple-tank dive, with 75-foot visibility and big, dramatic, sponge-dominated scenes showcasing towering tan and apricot sponges as well as olive, gray and red sponges in a riot of ropey, spikey and wavy shapes. Clouds of pyramid butterflyfish, anthias and a variety of damselfish swarm about and bring the photogenic invertebrate architecture to life. Where are we again?

Related Reading: Why Tioman Island Is the Perfect Dive Detour

An Experiment Gone Right

Lugging my wide-angle camera rig onto the boat for that first day of wide-angle work had seemed a risk: Would my “Wide Side of Lembeh” idea be worth sacrificing valuable bottom time poking around the marvelous muck zone? Had I wasted precious luggage allowance bringing the super-sized dome? I’m happy to report “Yes!”, and “No!” I’m not done with macro forever; I just needed a break, a temporary creative detour from pursuing this storied destination’s status quo mission.

If you’re willing to shoot outside the box, Lembeh Strait offers some very nice, “classic coral reef” wide-angle photography that only adds to the allure of this traditionally macrocentric muck-critter destination.