Situational awareness sucks when (trying to) take pictures. . .

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Learn to listen. Learn how to directinalize that under water. I listen to my buddy when we first descend and take note of their fins. How does their reg sound compared to the others? As I'm taking a picture or exploring, part of my mind is tracking them.
Ahhh but I mostly dive cold water. With a 10 mm hood you can’t hear sh*t. When in warm water, I'm almost always solo
 
I carry a camera on every dive, as do the people I dive with. We are all lousy buddy divers. Sometimes I will an interesting subject and show it to a buddy, but only after I have gotten the shots I want. More often than not, I can't find my buddy to show her/him the subject. I consider every dive a solo dive.
 
An underwater photography diving with a buddy? Same day, same ocean, same boat?
 
I have buddies who seem to do all they can to place themselves in my blind spot. And I’m NOT taking photos. These are just shallow quarry dives. I’ve asked repeatedly for them to stay where I can see them. I’ve just given up on it.
This is as much on you as it is on them. Especially if you're the "lead" diver

The only blind spots are those you're not looking. I teach DM's to guid and I've very good at being a d!ck and hovering right over their tank just behind, and watch them "panic" when they can't spot me, them we go back over head movements and area scanning

If you lose sight of a diver it means you're not checking frequently enough. They don't move that quickly

Bad stuff happens quickly. Years ago my wife gave me a post dive tongue lashing (not a euphemism) for not checking on her for 6 minutes - lesson learned

Defaulting to the "I'm alright jack" position probably means you're a long way off from being ready to lead others or being a dependable team mate.


So thankfully, I've made it past the stage where I have to think very much about my buoyancy when taking pictures, but my situational awareness really sucks.

I regularly lose track of my buddies, my most recent buddy has a couple of thousand dives on me and said he had me in his sights, but I had no F***ing idea where he was (FWIW we both carry ponies) and my navigation skills go right into the toilet. I'm very comfortable as a self-sufficient/solo diver, but what's a boy to do, other than to dive more and hope things improve.

What you need to do is remember to keep your buddy in your sights frequently. Take a shot, look take a shot, look. You're getting "target fixation/task loaded" what else aren't you checking or aware of? Your own air? (extreme example)

Try to get into a routing. Buddy checks aren't onerous or long, once you know their position, they shouldn't be drifting off too far too quickly unless they're on a scooter.

Try to get a routine and not fill your mental bandwidth to capacity
 
This is as much on you as it is on them. Especially if you're the "lead" diver

The only blind spots are those you're not looking. I teach DM's to guid and I've very good at being a d!ck and hovering right over their tank just behind, and watch them "panic" when they can't spot me, them we go back over head movements and area scanning

If you lose sight of a diver it means you're not checking frequently enough. They don't move that quickly

Bad stuff happens quickly. Years ago my wife gave me a post dive tongue lashing (not a euphemism) for not checking on her for 6 minutes - lesson learned

Defaulting to the "I'm alright jack" position probably means you're a long way off from being ready to lead others or being a dependable team mate.




What you need to do is remember to keep your buddy in your sights frequently. Take a shot, look take a shot, look. You're getting "target fixation/task loaded" what else aren't you checking or aware of? Your own air? (extreme example)

Try to get into a routing. Buddy checks aren't onerous or long, once you know their position, they shouldn't be drifting off too far too quickly unless they're on a scooter.

Try to get a routine and not fill your mental bandwidth to capacity
Yep, I got a very similar post-dive tongue lashing from my wife yesterday. I was silly enough to respond that I had her in my sites at all times. What I did not understand and I need to work on is that all “those little creatures obviously are more important to me than my wife”. I think photography is, in part, to blame for this one, as I agree that concentrating on this task invariably take some attention away from other tasks/responsibilities. I feel, however, that in buddy diving it needs to be agreed upon beforehand, how the buddy dive is planned. I do not see a problem for a dive buddy to hover with you for a moment while one is taking a shot. There were a number of times that by the time I got my shot, I can barely see fins of my buddy they are so far ahead of me… I guess it is on them as much as it is on me.
Happy diving.
 
Same spearing, fossiling or lobstering.
If a buddy is involved everyone needs to be self sufficient as there is little way to be as attentive when task loaded. Particularly if narcosis is an issue for either.
 
Same spearing, fossiling or lobstering.
If a buddy is involved everyone needs to be self sufficient as there is little way to be as attentive when task loaded. Particularly if narcosis is an issue for either.

If everyone is relying on being self-sufficient as their way out of a problem, then they are all solo divers--solo divers who are coordinating their dives with each other. Which is an alternative to the buddy system.
 
With regards to situational awareness and photography I just got back a month ago from the Keys taking pics....I had my head so buried into the picture taking process that I had no idea a 10 foot hammerhead was swimming above me about 8 feet over my head. Not until I got back to the boat did the DM and boat captain tell me all about it!!
Hope they got pictures!!
 
With regards to situational awareness and photography I just got back a month ago from the Keys taking pics....I had my head so buried into the picture taking process that I had no idea a 10 foot hammerhead was swimming above me about 8 feet over my head. Not until I got back to the boat did the DM and boat captain tell me all about it!!

I'd bet that shark knew you were distracted and "blind". Any predator knows what eyes are and what they do.
 
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