I’ve just returned home from a three-week underwater photography trip to Bonaire – cleverly disguised as our annual vacation. Actually, my wife was a willing accomplice on the trip and I very much appreciated her support and understanding in my attempt to develop my underwater photography skills. We chose Bonaire for a number of reasons; very little rainfall was near the top of the list as we get quite enough of that here, but mainly because it offered a great opportunity to get as much time in the water with the camera as possible – at least as much as we were willing. In the three weeks I logged 52 dives for a little over 48 hours of bottom time. I’d like to offer a brief introduction in terms of where we stayed and what quickly became our usual routine, the gear I used and my very humble experience up to the time of this trip, then share some of my thoughts on the process (of making underwater images), and of course, a few of the images I made.
We stayed at the Carib Inn – a small ten room facility perfectly suited for those that would rather be left alone to do their thing. They do however, offer boat diving and guiding services for those so interested. We rented a small pick-up truck from Telerin Rentals and did “our thing” which usually consisted of a drive-away morning dive, either another drive-away or a house reef dive in the afternoon and a night dive.
My underwater photo gear consisted of a Canon 30D in an Ikelite housing with ports for a Sigma 15/2.8 fisheye, a 28/1.8 and a 100/2.8 macro. I was happy with all of the lenses, with the exception that the 100mm macro seemed a bit long for larger subjects. I also had an Ikelite DS-160 strobe.
My only previous underwater photography experience was on two earlier trips to Hawaii. On the first one I did not yet have a strobe and on the second the dives were mostly guided. In preparation for the relatively extended trip to Bonaire, I had re-read Martin Edge’s book (The Underwater Photographer, Digital and Traditional Techniques) and numerous articles by a number of other underwater photographers whose work I admire. I also tried to look at as many underwater images taken in the waters around Bonaire as possible to both get an idea of what was possible and to maybe... get some ideas on shooting something original (a proverbial long-shot for sure).
In no particular order, here are some of my thoughts about underwater photography:
Whoever coined the phrase that photography is a subtractive process clearly never did it underwater on a tropical coral reef.
Getting a sharp image obviously involves more than focusing on a subject and releasing the shutter – at least with my gear.
Not even thirty years spent honing buoyancy skills will stop you from crashing into something while trying to compose in the viewfinder, one really needs to learn to see the world like a chameleon; eventually I had one eye in the viewfinder and the other on my proximity to anything I was trying not to touch. Independent eye movement turned out to be a great dinner conversation starter.
The motion of the Ocean does not help with any of the above, especially focusing.
And finally, when you realize you have the wrong lens on for something you’re looking at, that’s the time to just take it in for the sake of your soul. You can’t change lenses underwater... yet.
I’ll finish this by saying that I have a great respect for those that make engaging, emotive, original images underwater – it is a combination of diving and photographic skills that truly inspire.
And now for some of my humble offerings...
