Life under the sea: Incredible time-lapse video reveals corals and sponges in all their alien-like beauty as they forage for food

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‘My techniques are too complex to be performed under water,’ says Stoupin, ‘especially focus
stacking where any vibrations or swell would ruin the super-macro shot.

‘Focus
stacking is the technique that gave the most spectacular results and allowed me
to capture incredible amount of detail.

‘That’s why I had to look for help among
people whose activities I do not endorse – aquarists and commercial coral
collectors.

‘Marine aquarium industry is quite large here in Australia and a lot
of people create artificial reefs at home.

‘So, all filming was done in tanks
and due to my position I did not buy a single coral or live rock, I did not keep a
tank at home or in anyway contribute to the industry.

I tried to film freshly
collected animals before they are sold and shipped to other countries to be put
in private tanks.’

Up close you can see some of the incredible details on various pieces of coral and sponges

Here a coral known as a fungia can be seen excavating itself from sand and silt, which piles on top of it over time

THE GREAT BARRIER REEF

The Great Barrier Reef covers 1,429 miles and is so large it can be seen from outer space.

Marine
creatures include 600 types of soft and hard corals, more than 100
species of jellyfish, 3000 varieties of molluscs, 500 species of worms,
1625 types of fish, 133 varieties of sharks and rays, and more than 30
species of whales and dolphins.

It extends south from the northern tip of Queensland in north-eastern Australia to just north of Bundaberg.

The reef is an at risk World Heritage listed site that UNESCO believes could become an ‘in danger’ later this year.

A lot of interesting aspects of coral and sponge biology can be seen in the gorgeous time-lapses.

Some of the events happen over long periods of time, such as at night when some corals open up and extend their tentacles.

‘A fun part to watch is seeing how brittle stars
clean sponges,’ says Stoupin. 

‘Brittle stars are relatives of sea stars and sea urchins.

‘They
have long flexible arms with which they can collect random stuff sediments that
fall on sponge surface.

‘I did not know about such symbiosis until I saw it
it in my time lapses and then read it in a research paper after looking up for
information.’

Stoupin’s is all the more impressive as he had to juggle taking the shots with being a PhD student.

The longest part he says was processing the images.

‘Often I had to wait days to process a sequence to realize that I’ve
done mistakes and had to do it over.

‘One frame could easily take more than 10
minutes of processing time.’

The groundbreaking video reveals some unknown aspects of the deep blue sea that we are yet to understand

Stoupin hopes the video will serve as a reminder as to how precious and wonderful reefs like the Great Barrier Reef are

Each frame of the video was a ‘stack’ consisting of three to 12 shots, with the in-focus areas merged to highlight aspects of the coral and sponges

With the video Stoupin says he hopes to show a unique perspective of the Great Barrier Reef and attract attention to the problems that it is facing.

‘Australian government approved
industrialisation of the area that will have devastating consequences.

‘Ignoring
these problems and creating artificial reefs at homes instead of protecting the
reef is, unfortunately, is very common.

‘Watching the marine aquarium industry
from inside during the filming process made me extremely concerned about
priorities of those who often claim themselves to be reef lovers.’

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