Down too long in the midnight sea…

A couple weeks ago the Independence was in Cape May, NJ and we hit the submarine S-5.   The story of the sinking and the rescue of the crew of this WWI era submarine is incredible and I recommend everyone pick up a copy of Under Pressure. Conditions were not really good for photography on 8/6 the day we dove the wreck…   In addition to low visibility (15-20 feet) there was a layer of “muck” mid water that pretty much blocked all ambient light on the bottom making it very dark.  Always up for a challenge I set up my tripod (by feel in the dark) and spent 45 minutes in 41F degree water at 160 fsw slowly moving down the wreck taking shots that averaged 3-5 seconds in exposure time…  After stitching together 22 images in photoshop the result is a panoramic shot of the S-5 in all of her 231′ glory as she rests on the bottom 35 miles offshore.  It’s not the best quality but considering the conditions and my first try at manually stitching I’m pretty happy with the result. Bow is at the left, click for full resolution

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