46 replies to this topic

[Alex_Mustard]

It the good ol' days, underwater photography was difficult. If you could capture something interesting clearly you were doing well. These days underwater camera kit is hugely capable and folks bring back pictures from their first trips that would probably have won major competitions 10-15 years ago.

A lot of the old pros jokingly complain that digital make it too easy and these days and anyone get a picture to come out. But I like to see this problem the other way round. These days it is the photographer's eye that is all important.

I believe we are seeing a shift in who is taking the best underwater pictures. 10+ years ago all the good images came from a small handful of familiar faces. These days a quick browse on Wetpixel POTW or Flickr etc reveals some stunning images coming from hundred of people.

Whether people are shooting with DSLRs or compact cameras it is now the eye of the photographer, the compositions they choose, the stories they communicate, the creativity they bring to their photos, that really make images stand out. If they are blessed with the eye, people are producing stunning images with very little shooting experience.

No longer do you need the best kit and years of experience to get outstanding underwater photos. The advances in kit have changed the skill set required to stand out - from a technical one to an artistic one.

Anyway - nothing like an opinionated comment to kit off some debate... Do people agree?

Alex

[DeanB]

Absolutely agree with the power of the 'Eye' Alex

Its the only thing I seem to have..No decent kit as I'm too skint and I do-not have the fortune of having Gods swiming pool on my doorstep. (only his 'puddle') up the road. My technical expertise is growing but its something I tend to leave to people lie Drew Wong, wagsy etc..All the tech talk goes over my head.

All I know is I impress people with my films, win awards and make even the dullest, murkyest water look good. Its something I see through my eyes and 'somehow' can express with my footage. Don't ask, I don't know..I just do it.

I once showed a piece of footage to a BBC NHU cameraman and he told me that I had very natural composistion..I said "yeah my mum always told me to sit up straight"..I don't think he saw the funny side

Dive safe

DeanB

[John Bantin]

I bought my wife an expensive car but she's still a lousy driver. Where I live I see many £50,000 kitchens but most of their owners eat in restaurants. I bought a Yamaha electric piano but I still can't play it. People often say, "That's a good picture. You must havea good camera." Annoying, isn't it? But we live in a world where we are promised that if we buy the hardware, the talent to use it presumably comes with it. (You should see the beds in my house. I wasted my money on all of them!) As for this keyboard...

Peter Scoones once said to me that if you could get an underwater photo sharp and correctly exposed, you had a competition winner on your hands! That's why I avoided showing many pics to BSoUP during my recent talk. They are just as bad as everyone else's now - thanks to digital imaging (damn it)!

[meister]

Alex brings up good points. I agree 100%. Couple more points. Camera equipment is also now superior and at prices many can afford. Also, more time being underwater quite possibly equates with better chances of being right place at right time to get that award winning wall hanger, as in someone who’s underwater for only two weeks a year versus someone who’s fortunate enough to be submersed underwater for two weeks every two to three months.

[TheRealDrew]

It the good ol' days, underwater photography was difficult. If you could capture something interesting clearly you were doing well. These days underwater camera kit is hugely capable and folks bring back pictures from their first trips that would probably have won major competitions 10-15 years ago.

A lot of the old pros jokingly complain that digital make it too easy and these days and anyone get a picture to come out. But I like to see this problem the other way round. These days it is the photographer's eye that is all important.

Something I always have said is that I can teach anyone how to take a photo, exposure, f/stops and the rest, but you cannot teach someone how to "see" a photo. Sometimes an eye can be developed (no pun intended ), but often people do not have a critical enough eye as to what a good photo is. Back in the day, I would usually think 2 or 3 photos that on a roll of 36 to was good, but people would look at others also and think they were fine

I believe we are seeing a shift in who is taking the best underwater pictures. 10+ years ago all the good images came from a small handful of familiar faces. These days a quick browse on Wetpixel POTW or Flickr etc reveals some stunning images coming from hundred of people.

I am not sure if it just a function of better equipment and the ease of taking photos, both of which have helped ALOT above and below water, but also the fact that the means of distribution and viewing has changed radically. 10 years ago the internet was barely here for the vast majority of people. The only way people could see photos, more so underwater photos, was in magazines or groups who got together, and for the most part magazines were very difficult to break into and photo editors would have their selection of photographers. Many people may not have been having heir work seen.

Another factor is more people are diving than before. 10 - 15 years ago it was more of an extreme activity, now it seems more like anyone can do it. Take a look at the age requirements constantly being lowered for certifications and people who show up on dive boats to dive. How many people carry Nitrox cards now? 15 years ago it was voodoo - nowadays some divers will often look at someone without a Nitrox card as a rank beginner.

And there is also more people taking Photos. PADI, for instance, has expaanded their photo offering to include digital photography courses.

Another barrier that has also dropped - the cost of equipment. Nowadays you can get into shooting for alot less than before. A good point and shoot system can be had inexpensively and can deliver good results. Of course not the same as a nice dSLR rig, but a good photo is a good photo no matter where it comes from (Like Ansel Adams ) So for a few hundred dollars someone can starrt shooting now.

Of course on the techincal side, exposures, crops and the rest had to be alot closer to being right on the shot itself when sumbitting photographs and being able to make a print was more difficult. Nowadays, Photoshop and the rest makes it alot easier to make the photo look right.

Whether people are shooting with DSLRs or compact cameras it is now the eye of the photographer, the compositions they choose, the stories they communicate, the creativity they bring to their photos, that really make images stand out. If they are blessed with the eye, people are producing stunning images with very little shooting experience.

True, but I also see many that are not. Just like the old days of saying that is a nice picture when someone's thumb is in the frame, I see that often also still. Just as there are many more good pictures, there are many more bad pictures

[pmooney]

The ability to "SEE THE SHOT " is the bit that separates most people from the rest 'Irrespective of their equipment " !

Those folk who see the shots and actually know their kit ( however simple or complex ) are always the folks that get the shot !

Practise , read , study , be diligent , rehearse the shot , visualise it , make it happen.

This is the way of underwater photgraphy for all of us - Just some of us are more committed or fanataical than others..........

Edited by pmooney, 25 February 2007 - 06:41 AM.

[fdog]

I'd agree, Alex.

There's been a shift in journalism, too. 20 years ago the top shots were packed with emotion, and mostly "standard" composition and midrange quality. Today, you see lots of fantastic composition and quality, and a derth of emotion.

All the best, James

[John Bantin]

I'd agree, Alex.

There's been a shift in journalism, too. 20 years ago the top shots were packed with emotion, and mostly "standard" composition and midrange quality. Today, you see lots of fantastic composition and quality, and a derth of emotion.

All the best, James

James has made a good point.

I came from advertising where we strove (at enormous cost) for perfect images. Then I put that behind me and started supplying to a magazine pictures that reflected my actual experience (underwater). They were full of reality in that the imperfection of the conditions was retold. I remember, after my first trip to the Maldives, trying to persuade an art editor to combine a shot of a manta ray with that of the divers who were looking at it. He would not, on the grounds it lacked integrity although to me it represented the actual scene even though I had failed to get it all on one single frame of film.

Today, art editors want shots to be clinical. They want the manta rays swimming in line and the pigmy seahorses doing ballet on a perfectly clean background. Pictures are rejected if they show any plankton so we have to sit and spot it out. However, thanks to Photoshop, I can go back over the pictures I took between 1980s and now and salvage a lot that were rejected because they were too 'organic'. They want perfectly constructed pictures with immaculately clean backgrounds. Is that a derth of emotion?

[photovan]

Legends (Doubilet, Newbert and others) aside, what used to be lacking in (most) underwater photography was emotion. Dare I say it, you could not tell one u/w photographer from another.

Now that the technical side has been made easier through equipment advances, we are starting to see heart and soul in images, not just "pictures".

So the challenge is to ensure there is that "something special", a part of you, or your vision, or the way you see your subject, in your pics.. not just a pretty record of your dive.

So a great underwater photographer now should be bringing back images that are more interpretive of the experience than they ever were/ could have been before.

Great topic Alex.
darren

[dhaas]

Alex beat me to this topic, as I have been holding off wondering if people would chime in, agree, disagree etc.

The main thing I have always stated (here and on other forums, etc.) is you can't buy a good eye. As everyone has stated already, equipment is now so capable and reasonably affordable, plus photographic travel opportunites abound. What isn't talked about more, especially in the underwater world is emotion in images as James and a few others have alluded to.

Many of us (me included) head on a dive trip and subconsciously start shooting the same photos we've previusly seen, whether on a friend's web site, magazine article, or wherever. Maybe a little more saturated, sharper, a minor twist, but basically same old, same old......It takes a lot of thinking and shooting, continually pushing yourself to develop new ways of showing the same subjects.

I read (in print and on the web) about many different photographers and study their images. I buy very infrequently photography books only when one strikes me as unique. To study and discern how a photographer created the images in them. I have an old "Color" themed book by Peter Turner I think is cool. Plus some "older" dive coffee table books. These days it has to be something really "off the wall" to get me to want to buy one......

One of the best shows I've scene and was awed by, was a recent broadcast of a PBS show called "At Close Range". It featured National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore (www.joelsartore.com) The conversations with his editors there at NG, many who have worked with him on stories for 15+ years was a mind boggling insight into what a great photographer goes through in getting images to tell a story. Not just the # of rolls of film, but some insights into natural history / nature shooting and more.

If you go to his web site, his assistant has her own BLOG talking abut how the show was filmed over a year ago, and now Joel is all digital like most of the Geographic shooters. All very, very interesting and thought provoking.....Coffee conversations with a fellow landscape photographer was another part of the hour worth watching.

Check it out when you get a chance, as I'm sure many ideas could be used to the expand the current state of UW images.

But as I stated in the beginning, you still can't buy a good eye Just study, practice, experiment and have fun....

dhaas

[Rick_G]

Alex-

A photographic eye!

Who makes it?
How much does it cost?
Where can eye get one?

Rick

[John Bantin]

Alex-

A photographic eye!

Who makes it?
How much does it cost?
Where can eye get one?

Rick

I did a three year degree course in photography but did nothing towards learning how to shoot pictures until I was apprenticed to a great photgrapher (Bill Young, London, 1968-70). Apprenticeship is something that is under-rated and often bypassed nowadays but there is no substitute for being in the company of a great artist. A good eye rubs off from someone who has one. Ask Michelangelo!

(Of course, I am merely an underwater snapshooter now. )

[Alex_Mustard]

A photographic eye!

Who makes it?
How much does it cost?
Where can eye get one?

Trouble is, if I recommend one I am sure that there will be a photographic eye mark 3S out before you can get to the shops.

Alex

[John Bantin]

Trouble is, if I recommend one I am sure that there will be a photographic eye mark 3S out before you can get to the shops.

Alex

That's my problem. I'm using a very old and obsolete model!

[Paul Kay]

If by a "photographer's eye" you mean the ability to see an image, then I think that digital will constantly throw up new challenges which will add to the multiple decision making processes that a photographer already has consider when seeing a final image upon viewing a subject. The apparent increasing ease of the technical side of underwater photography does not and never will replace the photographers decision making process (think about TTL flash systems - they can produce an acceptable image but not neccesarily as a photographer may want it to be) which remains at the heart of a good image. And nothing can replace a photographer's understanding of the interplay of light and a subject - lighting remains the key to photography and has to be observed, perceived and understood.

And, and it is a big and, seeing an apparently technically good image on the web does not meant to say that it is an acceptable image to reproduce in any other way - there is a great deal more to producing a superb A3 dps in a glossy than is often realised by many. No, on balance I would say the digital photography should drive up the quality of image creation and that as ever the key to taking consistently good, interesting underwater images is about being there, seeing the image (the 'eye') and capturing it as you want to - something which technology can help with, but cannot do by itself.

[frogmansub]

The photographic eye is probably the single most important tool in today's underwater phtographer. I have been on a numebr of dives with Alex, watched him take a picture, tired to get the same shot, and have always preferred his images to mine (Alex, that's my way of saying thanks for the beer last Wednesday :-))

But the ability to approach a skittish subject without disturbing it is also hugely important. How many times have we visualised THAT perfect shot only to get too close, make too much noise and spook the critter ? I think general diving ability can make more of a difference in underwater photography than camera equipment used.

JP

[acroporas]

Nahh, you've got it backwards, a photographic eye is not necessary with digital.

With film you had 30 chances per dive to get it right. With digital you can easly snap a few hunderd shots on a single dive. One of them is bound to be good.

[DeanB]

Confusion mumbled "A persons version of good, may not be anothers"...

JP... any info on the finalists to the B.U.I.F..

Dive safe

DeanB

[Alex_Mustard]

I have been on a numebr of dives with Alex, watched him take a picture, tired to get the same shot, and have always preferred his images to mine (Alex, that's my way of saying thanks for the beer last Wednesday :-))

Wow, what a complement. Takes good pictures and gets the beers in! Although I still can't get a decent shot of barracuda.

Lots of good points coming up.

Alex

p.s. Dean - I am only judging the still images - but I think both are being done soon.

[frogmansub]

JP... any info on the finalists to the B.U.I.F..

I'm afraid not. Jane is keeping schtum on that subject! I haven't seen any of the stills (apart from mine ) but what I can say is that I've seen some great stuff in the video category.