Author, photographer and cave explorer Guy Bryant has gained fame for his dramatically lit photos of Florida’s freshwater springs.
Guy visited Blue Grotto earlier this month and, with the help of our staff, created the images you see here.
A modern twist on an old technique
Imagine you were a photographer nearly 100 years ago and wanted to capture the beauty of a massive, air-filled cavern. You would be shooting on film, and your only lighting option might be the newly developed flashbulb. How could you use these primitive tools to light up an entire cave?
The technique that evolved is what is known as “painting” the cave. You would set your camera on a tripod, open the shutter in total cave darkness, and leave it open. With no ambient light, no film would be exposed until you provided the needed illumination.
Next, you or your assistants would go to various points in the cavern and fire off a flashbulb. Each time this happened, a different portion of the film would be exposed.
You would then close the shutter and develop the film. If you were lucky, you wouldn’t need to make a second or third attempt, and the result would look something like what you see above.
Modern equipment makes a difference
These days, Guy has tools that his predecessors couldn’t even imagine. These include digital cameras, powerful underwater video lights and, of course, Adobe Photoshop.
To create the images you see here, Guy set up four cameras and had our staff snorkel the perimeter of the Grotto while holding 15,000-lumen video lights. He then composited the images in Photoshop.
You can see other examples of Guy’s work on his Facebook page and in the coffee table book Illuminated Springs, Volume 1. This should be available shortly.