“Buoyed by water, he can fly in any direction – up, down, sideways – by merely flipping his hand. Under water, man becomes an archangel.” –Jacques Cousteau

There is nothing natural about breathing underwater.  But when SCUBA diving, the world seems to fall away.  Nothing exists but the cool blue-green and the shafts of light that pierce water.  Problems vanish and anxieties melt, swirling past in the constant tide.

One can never possibly find the words to describe diving.  The sound of bubbles, as they rush through your regulator, whirling past your ears and up to the sun, is a low, muted gurgle.  Fog coils around the corners of your mask no matter how well you defog before descent.  Everything is tinted blue and glows softly, flickering as the surface churns.  The weight of your gear is sweet, familiar, even loving.  Each fin cycle is soothing and smooth.

Existence is different down under the sea.  It is simpler and yet, electrifying.  Every sense is heightened, every sensation, magnified.  The only way to bring it back to the surface is through film.  Underwater photography is my specialty.

This summer I got my advanced SCUBA photo certification through Naui at CIMI.

If you’ve ever used a camera on land (which I’m sure most of you have) you probably know it’s difficult to get a good shot.  The lighting is always tricky, your hands might be shaking, the composition is off, your subject isn’t cooperating.  Think of all those volatile factors and then imagine that underwater.

Light exists differently beneath the surface.  Objects appear about a third larger than their actual size and some colors such as red, yellow and orange are much subtler underwater.  The water is constantly pushing and pulling you around and if you’re moving, so is your camera.  A majority of the time you cannot set up your pictures, you must simply photograph whatever presents itself to you.  There is no room instruction or preference, each shot is a gift given by the sea.  Often the subject will be hiding, moving or swimming exactly where you don’t want it to.  So I think it’s pretty clear that this kind of photography is a little tricky.

Personally, I enjoy working with macro lenses (close up) in SCUBA photo.  The amount of and control you have is greater because you can decide how much or how little you want in the shot more effectively.  Wide-angle lenses and fish-eyes are used for larger marine life; two problems with these lenses are: one, you may or may not see any big stuff.  And two, there is NO way to control how the big stuff will (or will not) pose for the shot.

Algae shots are the easiest and sometimes the most radical.  These photos are typically a point-and-click type deal.  They will turn out or they won’t.  I took this picture in 2010:

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