Perhaps not a technically perfect image, but it conjures happy memories. At Oslob, on the island of Cebu in the Philippines, you can snorkel with whale sharks, which although not captive, have been conditioned to show up and be fed by local fisherman. With many swimmers, snorkelers and huge whale sharks in the water, it was chaotic but thrilling to be so close to these magnificent animals, and the hour or so we spent there with them was pure joy.

If you follow my regular contributions, you might have clued in that I am a bit nuts about anemonefish, and have taken many images of these engaging and beautiful fish over the years. This shot is from a recent trip to the Philippines.

Cocos Island in Costa Rica is way out there, both literally and figuratively. Located more than 300 miles off the west coast of Costa Rica, it is a day and a half open ocean crossing each way, and it can be a rough. But it’s all worth it to see healthy schools of sharks, and this: an immense ball of big-eyed Jacks orbiting off a reef. This massive swarm of fish was so large, and so dense, that swimming into the middle was almost like a discombobulating night dive.

These adorable little creatures inhabit sea fans in the tropical Pacific. They are seriously tiny — about the size of an uncooked grain of rice, and finding one requires more patience (and better eyes) than I possess. Indonesian dive guides are usually very good at finding these wee critters (of which there are several varieties — this one is a Bargibanti), and can be super helpful in setting up the shot, which takes great care as the fans are very fragile. Having captured this shot, I no longer feel the need to try to capture images of these tiny creatures, which appear to be very light sensitive, and so are difficult to photograph as they tend to turn away from the camera.

A crowd favorite, these magnificent beasts are always a thrill to behold. I have seen several over the years, but never managed to get a great shot, as they are usually doing a flyby and are long gone by the time I get my jaw off the floor, and my camera up and ready. On this dive, we found ourselves at a manta cleaning station (Manta Sandy), where these massive rays come into be groomed by small cleaner fish. This behavior gave me an opportunity to imagine the image I wanted to capture, and execute the shot.

I took this image on my first dive ever underwater with a camera, and on my first ever cavern dive. I’ll admit that I really didn’t know how to operate the camera to its fullest capabilities, but I did see the potential for this shot before it happened, positioned myself to shoot it, and I think got very lucky on the exposure. This image was chosen by popular vote to appear in a scubadiving.com Diver-to-Diver calendar, and that early success for sure was a motivation for me to keep learning, and shooting.

Another super tiny subject, these little guys are difficult to spot, much less photograph. I had been trying for a while to get a pleasing shot of one, and I worked pretty hard to get this image. For the first several years I was taking pictures underwater, I focused on the big picture — so mostly wide angles and fish portraits. It was only in 2008 that I got a macro lens (Nikkor 105) and started shooting little things like this. I’ll admit I am now addicted to Macro. :)

Fiji has a special place in my heart. I first traveled there as a backpacker in 1982, and I fell in love with the unspoiled country and the kind people. I didn’t get back there again until 2006, and on that trip I had my first chance to dive the unbelievably colorful and lively reefs. I’ve since returned several more times. I can never get enough of this stunning diving.

These strange little crabs live on soft corals, like the ones in the previous picture. They can be difficult to spot, as they are quite tiny, and they are great at camouflage. A dive guide teased this little beauty out onto the stem of a soft coral with his muck stick, where I captured this shot. Within seconds it scurried back into the polyps of the coral, where it was next to impossible to see or photograph it. I am generally opposed to manipulating creatures or habitat to get pictures, but the guide here was very gentle, and in no way harmed the creature or the soft coral.

E6 is an epic dive site in the Vatu-i-Ra passage in Fiji, and was so named because in the days of film, photographers would jump in, find so many great photo opportunities that they would blow through a roll of film, climb back on the boat, throw it in the E6 processor, reload, and go back down. This was a special trip with my youngest daughter (aka P3), who is a keen photographer herself.

As I already mentioned, I am nuts about anemonefish — seriously, it is a borderline obsession :) — but this was the first time I have found them with eggs. These fish can become quite belligerent when they are nesting, and I took a few hits from this large Saddleback Anemonefish while taking this picture.

This image is also from my early days with a camera in the water, and was taken on my first trip to the Galapagos. We had just come up from a dive and were on the zodiac, being ferried back to the mother boat, when the boat driver spotted this whale shark on the surface. We all rolled back in, without scuba tanks, and had about 20 minutes with the behemoth shark. I saw the possibility of this image before it happened, and positioned myself to capture it. When I was back on the boat and had downloaded my shots onto a laptop, one of the dive guides walked by, looked over my shoulder and said ‘Wow, great shot — you should enter that in the Aggressor Photo Contest”. And so I did. And it won. :) Aggressor then used the image for a major advertising campaign a few years later.

You might have been following Judy G’s monthly photo galleries, which have been appearing here on Scubadiving.com for more than a year, and perhaps you're interested in knowing a bit more about her.

Judy is an avid underwater photographer and writer, and she has contributed to Scuba Diving magazine (both online and in print), Sport Diver magazine, Meridiani Magazine (Italy), Golden Dolphin and Western Mariner.

She began diving in 1994, and she will freely admit that she was reluctant to learn to dive — a very nervous newbie. Her husband was keen to dive, and she was keen not to be left behind, so she gave it a whirl. She was certified in cold water in Vancouver, British Columbia, and her first open-ocean dives pretty much terrified her, but a magic encounter with sea lions flipped the switch for her, and soon she was diving every chance she could.

Judy is a self-taught photographer and she began taking pictures underwater in 2002, with an Olympus 4040Z digicam, which she shot for several years. When it died, she moved on to a DSLR, and currently shoots a Nikon D300 in an Aquatica housing, with Ikelight strobes.

Judy started out by writing trip reports and sharing her images in Scuba Diving magazine’s Diver to Diver online community. She was inspired by other travelers who took the time to share their experiences and images, and felt compelled to do the same. She then created her own website/blog to host the trip reports and multimedia slideshows, and to date has hits measuring in the millions. You can surf into Awoosh.com and find numerous travel articles (hers as well as some of her dive buddies), and many links to galleries and multimedia slideshows.

Walter Starck at Golden Dolphin Magazine happened to see some of this work and contacted Judy to invite her to share her stories, images and multimedia presentations on a regular basis, which was her first engagement as a published writer and photographer. Judy also won the Aggressor Photo Contest in 2004 with an image of a whale shark that she captured in the Galapagos, which she shared in this gallery.

Judy was born and raised in Vancouver, BC, and she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Literature from the University of British Columbia. She also completed several courses at Simon Fraser University, all to do with writing and publishing.

Judy is happily married (she jokingly refers to her husband as Mr. G), and is the mother of three grown daughters. Her whole family is keen on diving, and has traveled together to dive on some memorable adventures. She has also participated in many group trips organized within the scubadiving.com online community, and many of those divers have become close friends and regular travel buddies.

Judy has had an eclectic variety of jobs, including geriatric nurse’s aide, flight attendant, fitness instructor, RCMP fitness tester, homestay mother to international students, corporate fundraiser (YMCA), and she was a partner in a fruit winery for several years. She was delighted to finally embark on a journey of traveling, diving, writing and photography, after having put such dreams on the back burner for many years while her children were young.

Follow Judy G's Travels Through Her Other Photo Blogs

Oh, Baby! Adorable Juvenile Critters | We Are Family: Anemonefish Gallery | Meeting Mr. Big