The Bloody Bay Wall Mural Project

During the ten days spent photographing the mural project, we stayed at the Brac Reef Resort on Cayman Brac. Manager Gary Villiars and his wife Tracy were a great help in making our arrangements and taking care of our special needs. We arrived after midnight and made our first dives the next day. Our boat for the project was the "Fraid Knot" operated by Barefoot Watersports a.k.a. Captain Steve Foster. After discussing the project with Steve and his divemaster Jeff McDowell, Great Wall in Bloody Bay was selected for our scout dives.

The very first dive at Great Wall confirmed that this was the place. On the first dive day, we video- taped an area of Great Wall West and took a series of test exposures with each predetermined camera configuration. After later reviewing the tape and analyzing the processed film, we decided on the area to be covered and the camera configuration to use. Things were getting exciting now, because this was actually working, but our exciting dive vacation now became a daily routine of diving the same site over and over and over. We came to know individual sponges and corals by name, as well as the helpful staff of Reef Divers, who supplied us with 16-20 tanks a day.

Each day included an average of 4-5 dives, each with a 90 ft maximum depth and approximately 30 minutes. Multi-level diving computers, surface intervals and long safety stops were required to avoid any decompression. However, on a few occasions, our last dive required a decompression stop. At the end of each day, our film was processed by Barbara McDowell at the Divi Tiara photo lab. Our "lab", set up in the resort, included a 35mm slide scanner and a high end Macintosh workstation capable of working with gigabyte size images. The processed film was scanned at medium resolution and each digitized frame was processed and assembled on the Mac. The goal here was to have a completed low resolution proof of the final image by the end of the photography process, with each frame of image data analyzed for coverage and image quality, labeled and catalogued. Later, back at home, all of the images would be reassembled at high resolution.

from left: Peter Neubauer, Steve Foster,
Jim Hellemn, Jeff McDowell, Larry Hellemn

© 2000 Jim Hellemn, all rights reserved. Written permission required to use any content of this page.




		During the ten days spent photographing the mural project, we stayed at the Brac Reef Resort on Cayman Brac. Manager Gary Villiars and his wife Tracy were a great help in making our arrangements and taking care of our special needs. We arrived after midnight and made our first dives the next day. Our boat for the project was the "Fraid Knot" operated by Barefoot Watersports a.k.a. Captain Steve Foster. After discussing the project with Steve and his divemaster Jeff McDowell, Great Wall in Bloody Bay was selected for our scout dives.

		The very first dive at Great Wall confirmed that this was the place. On the first dive day, we video- taped an area of Great Wall West and took a series of test exposures with each predetermined camera configuration. After later reviewing the tape and analyzing the processed film, we decided on the area to be covered and the camera configuration to use. Things were getting exciting now, because this was actually working, but our exciting dive vacation now became a daily routine of diving the same site over and over and over. We came to know individual sponges and corals by name, as well as the helpful staff of Reef Divers, who supplied us with 16-20 tanks a day.

		Each day included an average of 4-5 dives, each with a 90 ft maximum depth and approximately 30 minutes. Multi-level diving computers, surface intervals and long safety stops were required to avoid any decompression. However, on a few occasions, our last dive required a decompression stop. At the end of each day, our film was processed by Barbara McDowell at the Divi Tiara photo lab. Our "lab", set up in the resort, included a 35mm slide scanner and a high end Macintosh workstation capable of working with gigabyte size images. The processed film was scanned at medium resolution and each digitized frame was processed and assembled on the Mac. The goal here was to have a completed low resolution proof of the final image by the end of the photography process, with each frame of image data analyzed for coverage and image quality, labeled and catalogued. Later, back at home, all of the images would be reassembled at high resolution.
					from left: Peter Neubauer, Steve Foster, Jim Hellemn, Jeff McDowell, Larry Hellemn

		© 2000 Jim Hellemn, all rights reserved. Written permission required to use any content of this page.