The nudibranch is one of the first subjects most divers lock onto when they enter the world of underwater photography. Slow-moving and easy to track, with dazzling colors that send divers into a frenzy, nudibranchs seem like the perfect starting point. Yet the sheer variety of species and the enormous range of forms mean that most divers know these tiny creatures simply as "nudibranchs," with little understanding of their ecology or habits — leaving every encounter largely up to chance. On Green Island, however, there is a nudibranch master who can tell you exactly where each species appears, the seasons and even the times of day they emerge, and who catalogs with expert familiarity the more than 400 nudibranch species he has discovered in Green Island's waters. Let's take a look at Joe Chang's nudibranch story.
Bornella anguilla2
Falling in Love with Nudibranchs
Joe was once a musician — someone who lived the romantic life of a man whose whole world was a guitar. He organized New Year's Eve galas for the Hualien County Government, served as a regional-round judge for the Chinese version of The Voice, and was even the music director for a music village project in mainland China. He recalls that the music industry in Taiwan was actually quite profitable in those days, but after 2012 a wave of new competitors emerged and began squeezing out existing business models. Faced with hard realities, he had no choice but to change course and temporarily set aside the way of life that had given him such rich insight into the human experience.
His relationship with the ocean begins in 2008. A lifelong biology enthusiast, Joe has always been fascinated by living creatures — at one point he kept more than 400 large tarantulas simply to observe their behavior up close. Around that time his family had set up a saltwater fish tank, and a senior diver told him he could show him a much bigger, far richer "aquarium." Under that mentor's guidance, Joe jumped into diving with no theoretical foundation whatsoever. He still remembers how, on his very first dive, his mentor simply grabbed him and pulled him underwater. He was completely unfamiliar with the equipment, and couldn't even manage basic ear equalization — yet despite the dull ache in his ears, he was utterly transfixed by the beauty of the underwater world before him.
In 2010, under the guidance of his first formal instructor, Coach A-Xi, Joe officially earned his Open Water Diver (PADI/SSI cert) certification. On the recommendation of He Zhi-Zhong from Cool Diving, he was introduced to Green Island, where he met Coach Yu of Flyfish Diving. Coach Yu's ecology courses gave Joe a far more comprehensive understanding of marine life, and it was Coach Yu who recommended the very first nudibranch field guide Joe ever owned. From that moment on, he was hooked on these colorful, mysterious creatures.
As happens with most divers after they learn to dive, Joe wanted to document the beautiful life he was encountering underwater, and so he stepped into the bottomless pit of underwater photography. Information on diving was relatively hard to come by back then, and resources on underwater photography were even scarcer. Whenever he bought a camera or a piece of gear that didn't work out, he'd set it aside and move on — earning himself the tongue-in-cheek nickname "King of Getting Burned." By his own rough estimate, he has spent upward of NT$1,000,000 in total on underwater photography equipment.
That began to change in 2015, when Joe met the chairman of Hong Kong's Bubble Scuba. One day, while consulting the Bubble Scuba website about a product, Joe happened to be answered by the chairman himself on the other end of the screen. That chance exchange opened a bridge between the two men. Through back-and-forth online chats, they engaged in lively discussions about lighting positions and composition for each photo, and before long the chairman flew personally to Hualien, Taiwan, for a face-to-face conversation with Joe. They hit it off immediately, and the chairman entrusted Joe with full responsibility for the Taiwan distributorship of Bubble Scuba — on one key condition: the chairman hoped Joe would continue pushing his underwater photography skills to an entirely new level, since that, he felt, was the most powerful marketing exposure Bubble Scuba could ask for. Beyond Bubble Scuba's chairman, Joe is also deeply grateful to SDI/TDI Director Li Shi-Ming for generously sharing his knowledge of the underwater photography market and his thoughts on how to run a business within it, giving Joe a much clearer picture of the industry as a whole.
Now the Taiwan general distributor for Bubblescuba and AOI, Joe hopes to share more accessible and practical photography tools with fellow divers.
The Path of Underwater Photography
Joe began joining numerous underwater photography communities, including the UWPIXEL WeChat group on the mainland, asking questions without hesitation and gradually learning about the lighting setups and compositions behind every stunning image the masters produced. His dedication to nudibranchs, too, is extraordinary: to date he has collected five nudibranch field guides in their original languages. Because the species he photographs are so diverse, when a book falls short he turns to online communities for answers — or contacts Dr. Zhang Yan-Wei in Taiwan or global nudibranch authority Richard Willan directly for deeper knowledge.
Where he once expressed emotion through the pulse of musical notes and the interplay of different instruments, Joe now channels that same creative spirit into photography. Choosing the right gear is like selecting the right instrument; different lighting positions, compositions, and camera settings are like different combinations of notes. He sees underwater photography as another form of artistic expression — a way of training himself to convey pure, unfiltered emotion through an image. The vivid colors of nudibranchs, combined with the black-background macro technique so common in close-up photography, perfectly embody his goal of fusing photography with musical creativity.
Cyerce elegans
Green Island's Ultimate Nudibranch Dive Guide
Think Joe's ability stops at identifying a species from a photo? These days he can tell you precisely which nudibranchs appear in which seasons, that certain species only emerge after midnight, and that others are found only on specific types of terrain. That makes him one of the very few macro dive guides in Taiwan who can take "orders" from his guests.
When shooting, he also does his best not to disrupt the nudibranchs' natural behavior. Instead, he uses their negative phototaxis — their tendency to move away from light — guiding them with a Flash Light until they crawl into the ideal angle for the shot, allowing him to capture one beautiful frame after another. Every nudibranch species has a different lifespan: some live only a few weeks, others up to two years. That's why he treasures every encounter. The moment you press the shutter might be the only photograph that will ever exist of that particular individual.
Finding nudibranchs requires thinking about season, time of day, habitat, and even behavior — feeding, mating. Without that, every sighting is just luck. The difference is how much time and effort you've invested.
Placida sp.
As diving continues to grow in popularity and more young people choose to become dive instructors, Joe has observed the intensely competitive market on Green Island over the long term and identified what he sees as a missing piece in Taiwan's diving industry: the professional depth of dive guides. If all you can offer is a safe guided dive or a certification course, you will inevitably be forced into a brutal price war. But if you can find your own niche, you can gradually carve out a blue-ocean market of your own.
As Taiwan distributor for Bubble Scuba, Joe is also unfailingly generous in sharing his nudibranch photography experience — whether at large public events like the DRT Dive Show or in one-on-one conversations. He hopes to pass on his passion for nudibranchs to everyone he meets. And for him, the greatest reward is when someone discovers a species he has never found himself.
On this small island of Green Island, he has photographed more than 370 nudibranch species that can be identified by their scientific names, along with over 60 species that remain unidentified or unclassified. For Joe, music filled the first half of his life with an abundance of hard-won wisdom; now, the kaleidoscopic world of nudibranchs carries on the romantic spirit of the musician he has always been.
Stiliger ornatus
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