Lembeh & Bali Trip Report 2024

A Bluewater Travel Macro Photography Workshop

Words and Photos by Dan Bishop

Indonesia offers some of the best macro photography opportunities on the planet, and Bluewater’s 12-day, dual destination trip to Lembeh and Bali gave 20 guests an experience to remember.

Lembeh and Bali are both a part of our tops picks for the Best Diving in Indonesia.

The first 7 days were spent exploring the rich and diverse muck sites of the Lembeh Strait.  Here, we stayed and dove with NAD Lembeh.  NAD’s excellent guides (at a 2:1 guest to guide ratio) found an abundance of macro critters for us to photograph at some of Lembeh’s best dive sites.  Guests could dive up to 4 times a day, with the 4th dive being a choice of a night dive, blackwater dive, or mandarin fish dive.  The resort itself offers comfortable villas, excellent dive boats, plentiful food, and a spacious camera room.

Lembeh Strait is well known for its diversity of macro critters, and this trip didn’t disappoint.  We were consistently treated to a variety of frog fish, nudibranchs, shrimp, crab, octopus, gobies, sea horses, and the elusive rhinopias. 

After 7 full days at Lembeh, the group travelled to Bali for another 5 days of macro shooting.  For this portion of the trip, we stayed and dove with Alam Batu Resort, which is an excellent resort located in the Tulamben area of Bali.  Once again, guests could dive up to 4 times a day, including a night dive.  Alam Batu offers a unique experience, including individual thatched roof bungalows, a wide variety of food options, spa treatments, 2 camera rooms, and a spacious dive prep area.

For another great macro spot, check out diving in Anilao! 

In Bali, we were treated to warm, clear waters (80ft+ visibility!) where Alam Batu’s eagle-eyed guides found more amazing macro critters for us, including nudibranchs, shrimp, crabs, frog fish, and octopus.  This area is also home to the wreck of the USAT Liberty, which some guests opted to dive.

This trip was a photo workshop, so in addition to the great diving, there were daily photo workshop and image review sessions, giving guests an opportunity to hone their photography and editing skills.  Specific topics included photography fundamentals, manual exposure control, macro composition, focusing techniques, strobe positioning and lighting techniques, composition, snooting, back lighting, bokeh, etc.  We also did a deep dive in to editing in Lightroom and Topaz. 

On the last night of the trip, we held a photo content and slide show, followed by an awesome barbeque on Alam Batu’s outdoor terrace.