This is is the Archerfish from Asia. These amazing fish have the unusual habit of feeding on land-based insects. Even more unique is their method of hunting their chosen prey. They spit a powerful jet of water at their dinner knocking it from overhanging foliage into the water, where the fish quickly gobbles them up! Of course I decided, this is something I needed to photograph using high speed flash, and so began a two-month long project.
First I needed to set up an aquarium. Once the fish was settled into its new home the process of training began. I started by adding a terrarium-like extension above the tank where I could release insects for it to feed upon using its natural abilities. Then I slowly removed pieces of vegetation until there was just one sprig left. The fish quickly learned that when he saw my hands in that area, dinner was being served. Turns out that was the easy part!
The photography proved to be quite a bit more difficult.
For lighting I used four Nikon SB-600s dialed down to 1/16th power giving me an effective shutter speed of 1/11,000 of a second. Two lights were aimed at the fish and I used two lights for the background. I was hoping that I could use a laser trigger system to fire the camera but it turns out the fish would come at the prey from many different angles. Which of course made it impossible for me to know where to place the beam. This meant I had to hand fire the camera and the timing would be critical.
