Living Reefs Of The Indo Pacific

A Photographic Guide

Photographs and Text by © Rob van der Loos

Published by New Holland Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd

ISBN 187633465-7

H 243mm x W 165mm x D 12mm

Review

This is a high quality softback book. The glossy heavyweight paper used is also of very good quality. It contains 176 pages and ??? colour images. The images are either full page, half page, one third page or one quarter page. But at no time do the images look as though they have been crammed onto the page to the detriment of the subject.

Rob van der Loos the author of this book is involved in operating a live-aboard dive boat in the Milne Bay waters of Papua New Guinea. During his time there he informs us that he has dived with many professional and amateur underwater photographers, many of which could take excellent pictures but who had no idea where to find the exotic and rare creatures that they dreamed of capturing on film. He therefore decided to commit his knowledge to print.

Contents

Living Habitats which is Chapter 1 in this book looks at the marine life that lives closely in association with others. Chapters 2 and 3 respectively, illustrate cowries and nudibranchs that are commonly found in tropical waters. In Chapter 4 we are introduced to several of the beautiful but dangerous Scorpion-fish family. In Chapter 5 we see and find out more about the most well known of associations, that between anemone fish and the sea anemone. As the desire to capture the more unusual and bizarre creatures on film is on the increase, more and more divers are moving away from the colourful tropical reefs to explore the habitats that exist in the sandy, silty and rubble or muck zones. The creatures found in these zones are covered in Chapter 6. Finally Chapter 7 explores underwater photography techniques and offers advice on how to get the best image possible.

Each of the excellent high quality images of the organisms has captions detailing its common name (where it has one), its scientific name, a descriptive comment and notes on depth, distribution and the authors suggested lens for the subject.

In conclusion:-
This book may not have a huge amount of educational textual content but what lacks in one area it more than makes up for in the images that it contains which depict many of the more rare and bizarre critters that can be found in the Indo Pacific region. If you are an underwater photographer who is planning a trip to the Indo Pacifc you would find this book very useful in gaining an incite into the life and habitats of some of the regions unusual creatures. I am pleased to have this book in my library and can definitely recommend it.