Tigerman I agree with you to a point, however as i am not a photographer I prefer to buddy up with a guide in Lembeh (Supid is particularly good) as some photographers can spend 25 minutes taking pics of pygmy seahorses leaving other divers hovering around waiting - which is where you see the difference between dive ops. If a dive op (particularly somewhere like Lembeh) splits up photographers from other divers thats a sign of good planning to keep all divers happy.
Its kinda annoying for the photographers to have to follow the others before they get their shot as well, so making sure photogrophers dive with photographers and even better allow them to "lag behind" is definetly better for everyone.. I can easilly ignore the 2 stonefish and school of slightly above average tuna to get a good shot of a goby
Several years ago I went on a trip on a liveaboard, and as a single diver, I was paired with the only other single diver on the trip. He was a serious photographer. The dives were sometimes guided and sometimes unguided, depending upon the situation. I had some issues with my buddy from the start but suffered with them as best I could until the dive that made the problems obvious to everyone. This was definitely a guided dive, because we were supposed to follow a specific path and end it in a cavern with lots of beautiful cave formations. The description of it in the briefing made it sound spectacular--the signature dive for the entire trip. We were divided into two groups, and my photographer buddy and I were in the second group. Our guide was a new employee who clearly did not have the people skills to handle the situation.
The first time we came upon something worth photographing, he stayed on that subject for so long that the first group was far, far ahead of us by the time we moved on. Then we came upon something tiny and interesting hiding in a coral formation, and my photographer buddy decided he was going to get the perfect shot. The rest of us hung around and hung around and hung around and hung around and hung around while he lay there, taking shot after shot after shot after shot after shot. Finally, we were all low on air and had to surface. We did not complete half of the dive plan, and we did not get anywhere near that (I guess) fabulous cavern.
After the dive, he was raving about how great the dive was for him. "I got more than 120 shots!" he exclaimed. I said, "I think the rest of us were really looking forward to getting into that cavern." Not me!" he replied, "I'd rather look at living fish than rocks any day." After that, the boat captain then made him a special offer. He would be the guy's personal guide the rest of the week, showing him great stuff to photograph. Relieved of the need to be this jerk's buddy, I finally got to enjoy some dives.
Yes, it is OK under the right circumstances to follow your own plan. Just be aware of the fact that in many cases, what you do impacts the dives for everyone else. Some people see a need to balance their needs with the needs of others, but other people don't give that a second thought. When your needs are so important to you that everyone else has to sacrifice to keep you happy, then you are creating a whole bunch of lasting enemies.
