Lembeh Photo Workshop Trip Report 2026

Words & Images By Mark B. Hatter

With a shiver, I peeled off my wetsuit top and hooded vest, grabbed a cup of hot “Milo” from Vando, one of our deckhands on the Wonderpus (one of three new, covered NAD Lembeh Dive Resort diving boats), and plopped myself down in the warm sun at the bow of the boat next to several of my dive buddies. Two things were on our collective minds as we toweled off, warmed our cores with a hot drink and thermal-loaded our bodies in the tropical sun. One, how is it possible that the storied Lembeh Strait could register a brisk 75 degrees on that last dive? And two, how could the diving get any better than what we collectively just experienced at this site, Nudi Retreat #1?

The water temperature in Lembeh was unseasonably cool for September 2026, probably due to more than a month of strong winds, shooting like a Venturi, between Sulawesi and Lembeh Island. Constant wind-driven turnover of warmer surface water with cooler water at depth kept the strait between a brisk 75 and 79 degrees for the length of our workshop.

Yeah, it was chilly, but a small price to pay considering the wealth of critters we discovered on just this single dive. Let me elaborate with a list: blue ring octopus, wonderpus, ornate ghost pipefish, robust ghost pipefish, Rhinopias scorpionfish, flamboyant cuttlefish, hairy frogfish, painted frogfish, coconut octopus, assorted nudibranchs, shrimp gobies, etc., etc., etc.! Nudi Retreat #1 gave our shooters more bucket list critters on a single dive than I’ve personally experienced in five decades of diving. Unusual? Maybe not. After all, we were “muck diving” at arguably the best place on the planet for critter diversity found beyond the reaches of a coral reef. And we were under the tutelage of the best dive guides and critter spotters in Sulawesi, operating with NAD Lembeh Dive Resort.

Twenty photographers with a common interest in improving or learning new underwater photography skills filled the NAD resort from September 16–22, 2026, having booked a Bluewater Dive Travel Photo Workshop. It was a busy but productive week of learning and shooting with up to four dives per day. Couple that with daily formal classroom lectures on a variety of underwater photography topics, which included: Wide Angle Shooting, Macro Shooting, Using Snoots and Creative-Specialty Shooting. In addition to structured lectures, we held two much-desired live sessions on Lightroom processing, covering “global” changes and “localized” changes to RAW image files.

Of course, getting wet and shooting with our kits was the first priority, and NAD’s talented underwater guides presented every guest with innumerable targets of opportunity across 20 different dive sites. At the end of the day, the diversity and quality of the images collected by our guests over the duration of the workshop were nothing less than amazing (see for yourself in the attached gallery)!

Our daytime diving began at 7:45 am each morning and ended at noon with a return to the resort for lunch after the second dive. At 2 pm we were on our way again to our third dive, returning around 4 pm. Our dive sites were as diverse as the critters we sought to photograph. From black sand slopes to rocky walls and deep rubble flats to shallow algae meadows, each dive site offered a specific target species, often associated with an environment conducive to a specific critter, with plenty of animal overlap between sites. For example, at Pulau Abadi 2, where thick, hairy algae covered a black sand slope like a meadow, short-hair and long-hair frogfish were found. In addition, the unusual Ambon scorpionfish lives there too. Did we find them? Yes, we did and the Ambon scorpionfish were a bonded pair! At Pante Parigi 2, our rewards were Bargibanti pygmy seahorses!

In addition to the typical daytime diving, NAD offers two unique dives after dark. At a dive site named Bianca, we entered the water about 40 minutes before dark and worked our way to a thicket of staghorn corals rising up from the silty bottom at around 20 feet. Staging along the edge of the coral forest, we patiently awaited the arrival of mandarin fish.

As sure as the sun rises, every evening just before dark, large male mandarin fish emerge from the coral thicket in search of receptive females. For a brief five to maybe 10 minutes before total darkness, mandarin fish pair up to rise above the coral and spawn in an embrace lasting no more than a few seconds! It was an amazing photo opportunity for any underwater shooter.

Besides the mandarin fish dive, NAD offers blackwater diving in the middle of the deep strait. Blackwater diving is much like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates — you never know what you are going to get. Over the course of three nights during our photo workshop, we scored “truffles” over “jelly-filled” chocolates, as evidenced by a plethora of sea jellies, blanket octopus, juvenile wonderpus, paper nautilus, and so much more!

We completed the workshop with a guest slideshow of the top five images and even had a photo contest judged by the staff at NAD. NAD is the ultimate destination to hold a Photo Workshop. Its camera room/instruction room is fantastic. With individual stations for 25 shooters and additional benches with tools in the middle of the room, photographers have more than enough space to assemble their rigs. A dry towel each day for every station is a nice touch. And their ultra-large TV monitor is perfect for slide shows, lectures, and image reviews.

We especially felt pampered by the crew at NAD as we lifted nary a finger managing kits to and from our spacious dive boats; our guides (at an unbelievable ratio of two shooters per guide) moved our gear, including cameras, to and from the boat each day. Three large freshwater dunk tanks with two air stations to blow off cameras were also much appreciated.

At up to four dives per day, this was a very busy workshop. Somehow we managed to take in daily lectures, from arrival day forward, dive extensively, download images, set up kits for follow-on dives while grabbing a bite to eat between image processing on personal computers. Whew!

The Lembeh Bluewater Dive Travel Photo Workshop is very popular with photographers and Bluewater Dive Travel Trip Leaders/Photo Instructors, and for good reason. In fact, I’ve already put my name in the queue with the Boss for the next available date to return to NAD to lead a future Bluewater Dive Travel trip.