Photography specialty course?

[JB]

Let me preface this with this: after about 20 dives I bought a Nikonos 5 with all the trimmings, and took hundreds of fish photo's which are in a shoebox which has not been opened for 15 years, beautiful Fugichrome Velvia slides! I now no longer take photo's underwater. How many fish portraits can a person have?

On my 2 most recent dive trips I witnessed the least experienced diver, the only one in the group armed with a camera, trashing the reef repeatedly for shots. If I was the DM I would not have pointed out the Pygmy Sea horse to this guy for fear of what he might do to the gorgonian fan!

This got me thinking that the underwater photography course, should be the most intensive course in he recreational diving arena, with most of the emphasis on diving skills such as bouyancy, trim, kicking styles that prevent contact with the reef, and yes, backfinning. And it should be a pass fail course! Much less emphasis on taking the photo. Lets face it with modern digital cameras, you don't need to know too much about exposure, or focus, depth of field is probably beyond most. It comes down to composition and white balance, and even then with a good strobe, it's all about composition.

I really believe that the photography course should first and formost make you a good diver, and that a person without the course shouldn't be allowed in the water with a camera. Strangely, it seems as though the happy holiday snap seems to take precedence over reef protection. I put this as a challenge to the agencies, I mean if you can point and shoot on land you can point and shoot underwater, the difficulty is in getting into position, holding the position, and not trashing the reef.

Wasn't sure if this is the correct place to post this, perhaps it should be in pet peeves! Feel free to move.

 

[rameus]

there are a few points you make in your statement. what i see quite often is either inexperienced or old people trashing the reef by just not controlling their buoyancy OR to make sure they don't move just grab a hold on a piece of coral... at that point i would sometimes like to just pull them away, flood their housing and let the camera drown aaaaaall the way to the bottom of the sea ;-)

in my opinion there is one main reason why this really became a problem: prices for either underwater photography only cameras or digicams/dslrs dropped massively in the last few years and since photography is "in" at the moment everyone wants to have a picture (not a photo) to show off at home and tell "see, i grabbed the turtle". this is the moment where i'd rather answer "right: see, i threw him into the lions-cage" ;-) what i want to say: these kind of pictures are made because you have to proof something to the people at home and not because you're doing it for your self as an enjoyment...

seriously: the buoyancy-issue should in my opinion generally be treated more seriously in the OWD and AOWD course since this topic is essential to diving and makes you enjoy a dive so much more if you know how you have to adjust down there.

quite a bit of the same thing as the noise underwater produced by divers i wrote an article about on my website.

if the readers don't agree with me feel free to comment ;-) by the way i just finished an other article about how i moved from my digicam to my dslr for underwater photography.

Thomas

 

[Puffer Fish]

As someone that teaches Underwater photography, I have three reasons to fail someone :

1. They don't demonstrate good buddy skills.
2. They destroy the reef.
3. Kicking up the bottom so the vis goes down.

But I would also say that almost everyone that professes to be never touch or hit the sea life, if you watch them, and they get close to the bottom to see small things, actually will. It has to do with the fact that much of yourself sticks out farther and does not relay any feeling. Anytime I dive with someone now that professes how good they are, I make a point of taking pictures when they hit or touch stuff. Are they destroying stuff, well no. Do they do some damage, and not know it, yes. Oddly, even when given evidence, they typically will deny it, because they assume if they are not aware, it did not happen. Some will say they only touch dead coral or it was only a minor brush (which may be true), but then will go off on how they never touch anything.

The other issue is gear... some setups put you in a head up / feet down angle when you stop. There is nothing one can do with that setup, if they stop, except end up with their feet on the reef. Take that setup (heavy fins, standard BC and little to no neoprene on their legs), and they go to take a shrimp pictures, and everyone in that gear configuration will be touching the reef with their feet. It has nothing to do with age, or experience.

Note: That same configuration works really well for other types of images... like wall diving.

Note2: The other issue with vertical position is on safety stops, where each person is taking up at least 5 ft of vertical space on a line.

It should also be noted that most agencies teach skills with people kneeling on the bottom, so it can be a bit difficult then turn around and tell people not to touch the bottom.

I remember diving in the Philippines with a couple that after the first day we nicknamed "Reef Wreckers". After every dive they would come back to the boat covered in broken off pieces of crynoids. They were experienced, and absolutely terrible divers.

I don't blame new divers for not having a good gear configuration, don't blame them for learning bad habits, what I would say is that we all should be trying to minimize our impact on the reef. That is all that I will ask of my students. And if that means the only way to get the image is to swim in and shoot while still moving, then by all means do that.

My biggest issue is, interestingly enough, noise pollution. If you are not a quiet diver, you have no idea how much regular divers scare everything. It has been years since I actually kept track of how many divers were down on a dive, as one can tell as soon as they leave. It is like someone switched a switch, and it is ok for everything to come out. The thing that scares them is all that rapid movement and the exhale. Want to be able to swim up to fish, then learn to soft exhale... oh, and I don't dive with people that take noise makers with them.