The Georgia Aquarium

I recently took a day off and took some relatives to see the Georgia Aquarium. Despite the price and the crowds, it's a wonderful, but challenging, place to take photographs. It combines dramatic lighting with people who are typcially not paying any attention to you.

The Georgia Aquarium features the largest salt water tank in the world. Inside it are three whale sharks (at least for now). The magnitude of this tank is almost overwhelming. And when you can catch it on a slow day when school is in, it's a wonderful place for contemplation. It's also a great place to photograph people photographing animals.

But my favorite creatures to photograph are the jellyfish. The Georgia Aquarium's tank of sea nettles is one of the best in the southeast. But they are frustrating creatures to capture. While dramatically lit, it is still very dark and the darned things just don't know how to hold a pose. I've tried many different tricks to beat the autofocus challenge of shooting through inch thick glass, but my rate of throw-aways to keepers is still maybe ten percent. I took almost all of these images with a 50mm f1.8 prime lens at ISO 100.

You can view more of them here.