Photographer of the Week – Grace Pempek

A goliath grouper smiling on the digicam off Jupiter, Florida, USA

 

This week, we return to South Florida as we marvel on the very good portfolio of Grace Pempek. Our newest Photographer of the Week grew up landlocked within the deserts close to Joshua Tree, California, and visits to the ocean had been few and much between. Grace’s first style of the underwater world was on a visit to Hawaii, the place she was in a position to snorkel, after which by way of a Uncover Scuba course in Jamaica as a young person. Quick ahead 10 years and Grace now resides in Florida, with limitless heat water, vibrant reefs, large animals, and the world-famous Blue Heron Bridge proper on her proverbial doorstep.

With the abundance of underwater alternatives obtainable in Florida, Grace started her pictures journey with a water-resistant housing for her smartphone with the aim to share the marine world along with her family and friends. She quickly realized that the cellphone simply wasn’t chopping it, and he or she determined to improve to an Olympus TG-6—with its superior Microscope Mode—and fell in love with capturing the considerable macro topics at Blue Heron Bridge. At first of 2022, having totally caught the underwater pictures bug, she upgraded once more, this time to an Olympus E-PL10 in a Backscatter Octo housing, with twin Sea&Sea YS-D3 strobes.

Grace serves on the volunteer-based board of the South Florida Underwater Pictures Society (SFUPS) as their social media director. She received concerned as a approach to assist deliver collectively a neighborhood of enthusiastic, like-minded underwater photographers that may share and develop with each other. Grace can also be now the resident photographer for the Kyalami Scuba Membership in Palm Seaside, Florida. She does guided photograph assignments and shares the great thing about her native Jupiter reefs with the neighborhood.

As you in all probability guessed, Grace spends each free minute underwater, whether or not that be on the deep reefs off Jupiter, at Blue Heron Bridge, at Breakers Reef, or down within the Florida Keys or The Bahamas. She is tough to overlook along with her colour coordinated vibrant pink gear! Grace says underwater pictures has allowed her to share what she loves with the world, and he or she hopes it’s going to serve to encourage these not lucky sufficient to expertise the sweetness that lies beneath the waves and to look after and preserve it for future generations.

 

A striated frogfish with a fireworm beret, Blue Heron Bridge, Florida, USA

 

A younger French angelfish photographed with the Saga Magic Tube, Florida, USA

 

A polkadot batfish glamor shot, Blue Heron Bridge, Florida, USA

 

A standard octopus tenderly tending to an enormous clutch of eggs, Blue Heron Bridge, Florida, USA

 

The show of a male bluethroat pikeblenny, Blue Heron Bridge, Florida, USA

 

Lovely however invasive, a pink lionfish hunts close to a dock piling at nightfall, Florida, USA

 

A shocking lined seahorse with matching bokeh bubbles, Blue Heron Bridge, Florida, USA

 

A flawless inexperienced sea turtle winging over seagrass beds within the Florida Keys, USA

 

A goliath surrounded by a whole lot of baitfish, Jupiter, Florida, USA

 

The final rays of a night solar gentle up a lined seahorse, Florida, USA

 

A small rosy blenny eyeballing the digicam, Florida, USA

 

A Caribbean reef shark and her entourage of remora and horse-eye jacks, Grand Bahama, Bahamas

 

To maintain up with what Grace is doing underwater, please observe her on Instagram. It’s also possible to see extra of her work on the SFUPS website.