Getting Started with Underwater Photography – New Year’s Edition

The end of the year is a time to reflect on past and future things, and to get senselessly hammered. I can recommend both, but I can’t help you with the later. Half-way through the course leading you through your initial plunge into underwater photography, a few quotes, however, can help you with reflectin’

“It’s only pictures of fish!”
– Marty Snyderman, underwater photography legend.

Don’t kill yourself on a dive. If the air is about to run out, you need to go up, even if there is cool stuff to photograph. Safety at least third!

“A flood is a sign to get an upgrade”
– underwater photo folk wisdom

Rough things will happen to your dive gear, including your underwater photo gear, if you only do enough dives. That’s normal: the ocean has waves, currents, rocks and salty water. Don’t let it frustrate you. Save up for a new camera if it happens, and learn from the mistake which destroyed the old one. Look at the pictures you took with the old gear in a final show of human-camera respect.

“Look at the fish, not your camera menus!”
– Pacificklaus

The underwater world is incredibly, fantastically beautiful, complex and diverse. You could, without exaggeration, spend half a life time observing the behavior of only one fish species. Look around, and suck all of that up! You will never ever photograph all there is. Don’t forget to look at the animals over your efforts at photographing the marine life. Do a camera-less dive sometimes! Have a good time! Underwater photography is not a competition, it’s a way of appreciating nature, and of sharing it’s beauty with the fellow humans stuck on land.

Happy new year!