Cheng and I have had that experience in several places. Often I'll swim on one side of the turtle and she on the other ... so we can get each other in the background of the picture. The turtle, at any time of its choosing, can simply swim away in front of us if it wants to. Sometimes they do, and sometimes not. We had one encounter in the Maldives when we followed the turtle till we decided we were getting too far from the rest of our divers, so we stopped and started swimming back ... and the turtle turned around and followed us!
I'm curious, Dan ... what is it about DIR that you believe is not compatible with photography? I ask because I have friends who are very much DIR who regularly carry cameras and/or video equipment. I've never known them to be anything other than excellent team mates ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
Bob,
In the original application of DIR, for several divers to safely reach the greatest challenges....the pure DIR concept for hitting the 3 mile mark at Wakkulla, or, later, in our deep wreck and deep 280 foot reef explorations--was about only doing what was optimal on the dive, and as video would have taken the shooter's awareness
away from the amount of peripheral awareness
they should have had at ALL times for what was going on with each buddy in the team, and what was going on around them, and what all the issues were with time, gas left, etc.....In the early pushes leading up to the first 3 mile mark at Wakulla, George would allow no one to bring cameras in to the exploration level penetrations--he felt it was too likely that if would cause a "charley fox trot" scenario.....Ultimately, they evolved procedures for a team to have as their mission, to be watching the video guys.......Ultimately, the
WKPP TRAINED an elite group of underwater videographers from NHK Japan, that were willing to do 2 weeks of WKPP boot Camp, in order to get the never before seen footage of deep in Cave --that the NHK team ultimately shot.This NHK team began as top cave divers and shooters....and the "Boot Camp" would have made Fundies look like tea and crumpets with Grandma....George was amazed at how well these guys did, and so he evolved the concept of allowing a photographer or video shooter as a "Dependent Buddy".... there could be no such thing as a 2 man DIR buddy team where one was shooting....but there could be a 3 man team with one shooter--the shooter always considered the dependent buddy because you have to assume they will be
oblivious to problems a real DIR buddy would notice PROACTIVELY, AND would solve for --- prior to them becoming emergency issues...the shooter if good at his/her art, will be engrossed in the creation of the ideal shot(s), and it will not be possible for them to be as aware as they SHOULD in order for this Proactive Strategy to have any usefulness --and this is a big part of DIR.
So...When Sandra and I dive on Juno Reef, as a buddy team, I can't say this is all DIR.....I spend a lot of my time making sure I know where she is every second, which is a challenge as she will see a shot, and move to frame it, and this can take her out of my line of sight if I am not watching her like a hawk....Obviously, I am trying to be her DIR buddy, but as for myself, I am diving SOLO by DIR standards....I justify this in my own mind, by knowing that I can do 90 foot freedives with relative ease, so I know I could not drown if I had an OOA from a catastrophic gear failure.....and back in the 70's and 80's I used to do up to 120 foot free ascents for practice and for fun...they are very easy. If at the end of a 25 minute duration at 90 feet, this would not be healthy to perform, so clearly I want better options---which means always having her in line of sight--and within easy breath-hold reach....and more importantly, the only way to make this nonsensical approach anything but foolish, is to have Bill Mee with us as a 3rd buddy....and Bill watches Sandra, and if she ducks down into a coral hole or something, he is high enough in the water column for me to see him, and for him to see her. Better still, would be a 4th team mate, so Bill would have an ideal buddy, but we have found that I can track him so well, even shooting video, that he is not compromised on these recreational depth dives....
If we are talking a 280 foot dive, it would be one shooter, and 2 buddies with the dependent shooter. And I won't bring Sandra deeper than 160 and still have a camera in my hands, because I feel that the challenge is high enough, that my buddy responsibility to her has increased to the point that I don't have any business cutting in to my peripheral awareness by trying to frame shots.
Bob--this is my take on DIR and shooting.....Since I had a big hand in developing a lot of this early conceptualizing for ocean and shooting, I think it is fair that I take a shot at trying to answer this very
good question by you.
As PfcAJ has suggested, DIR has EVOLVED a lot since George and Bill and I were making sh*t up as we went, and compiling our list of do's and don'ts in the 90's.
My take on this needs to be challenged by other DIR's, that have strong feelings on aspects of this....it requires the critical discussion that used to occur with all the diving parameters in the 90's....Discussions that really were inadequate to create a bullet-proof overview for DIR photographers
today.
*** PPS
Visit The DIR 3 video
[video=youtube_share;TD4K0SzZijI]http://youtu.be/TD4K0SzZijI?t=1h50s[/video]
and
pull the timeline cursor under the video to the 1 hour and 50 second mark---which is where you can see the NHK underwater footage which was so groundbreaking at the time....this really is amazing video.....And of course, moving ahead on the timeline like this, means that none of you guys that hate DIR or me, need to watch anything other than amazing underwater cave footage....
