set up before approaching a subject, they could very well find themselves frustrated from blurry shots with the light not hitting the right spot. Filters: Filters and foreground objects can bend highlights, create swirls or change the bokeh. ND filters can open up room for slower shutter speeds. The shots I get using filters PHOTO PRO continued
a simple identification image into a more compelling behavioral photograph. The strongest images often combine both lessons. A slow shutter can express a hunting octopus in motion. A snoot can isolate a frogfish's lure. Backlight can reveal a translucent subject's structure. Sometimes, however, the right decision is to move the snoot aside and make a clean behavioral photograph.
are very experimental and are not everyone's cup of tea. I would encourage students to try these things but not to get consumed by using them. It’s easy to get wrapped up in a cool effect and pay less attention to the subject. Artificial Backgrounds: Reflective back- grounds can be an amazing way to spice up an image, especially when a background is a little dull. For instance, seahorses in Dumaguete are often found clinging to small sponges on a brown seabed. When photographing them without an artificial background, it can be difficult to get something other than water and brown seabed in the background. Maybe you get lucky and have a picturesque crinoid or something of the sort in there, but many times you’re stuck with water and brown seabed. This is where something like a steel wool background can really bring a subject to life. Have the student or an assistant hold the background 8 to 12 inches behind a subject and let your strobe do the lighting. The color of the subject will reflect off the steel wool and create beautiful, colorful, soft bokeh in the background that will leave people asking you how you got the shot.
Behavior also sets the ethical boundary. If an animal turns away repeatedly, changes its movement or retreats, the session is over. Students should never move, prod or reposition a subject, and no group should surround it. A simple rotation planned with the guide gives each photographer a chance while leaving the animal an exit. Make a Plan and Stick to It: Dumaguete presents instructors with a useful problem: there may be too much to photograph. Stu- dents can rush from one guide signal to the next and return with a full card but no image they truly developed. Before entering the water, we ask each pho- tographer to choose one technique and one kind of opportunity. That might be a clean portrait, a snooted image, a slow-shutter study or a behavioral sequence. We also ask them to commit to one or two subjects. The guide can match that plan to the site instead of trying to show everything that lives there. Commitment does not mean monopolizing an animal or ignoring the dive. Students still
Behavior Before Effects: Creative tools can narrow a pho- tographer's attention until the effect becomes more important than the animal. We remind students to stop looking through the viewfinder and watch. A frogfish may work its lure. An anemonefish may pause for a cleaner. A shrimp goby may stand guard while its partner excavates the burrow. Behavior gives the photograph meaning that lighting alone cannot supply. Marty Snyderman makes a similar point in an article for Dive Photo Guide, “Capturing Critter Behavior at the Atlantis Dive Resorts.” Drawing on his experience at Atlantis, he rec- ommends pre-dive research, listening closely to the guides, approaching subjects thoughtfully, and slowing down enough to observe their behavior. His examples demonstrate how pa- tience and knowledge of an animal’s natural history can turn
monitor depth, gas, time, buddy position and the group. Blackwater raises that task loading considerably, so it belongs later in the progression, after students can manage the camera without losing awareness of the water column. The post-dive review should be equally focused. We identify one choice that worked and one adjustment for the next dive. A student may begin the morning trying to find a nudibranch in the frame and finish the day deciding how its movement, background and light should work together. Muck diving teaches a lesson that extends far beyond Dumaguete.
More subjects do not automatically produce better photographs. The art lies in seeing what others pass over, choosing what deserves attention and staying long enough to understand it.
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