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Underwater Photography Primer
To my immense joy, the dolphins started coming back in my direction. They were heading straight
toward me, occasionally one would leap but mostly I just saw 20 dorsal fins out of the water at a time
(the other dolphins swimming underneath). My joy eventually turned to fear when I thought that perhaps
a direct encounter with 60 bottle-nosed animals traveling at 30 miles-per-hour would not be pleasant. At
the last minute, when the dolphins were no more than 15 feet from me, they dove about 10 feet
underwater and swam directly underneath me. Some of them rolled on their sides to get a better look up
at me. I snapped their picture with a Nikonos V.
When I got the images back, I found that the dolphins were only faintly visible on film. My eyes had
adjusted to the blue light but the film did not. The contrast between dolphin and water, dramatic to my
eye, was very subtle.
(Thanks to Kathy Bauer and her crew at Advanced Digital Imaging for pulling out the image on these
PhotoCD scans.)
My decision
Actually I've decided that it isn't worth it, at least most of the time. I have enough trouble taking decent
photos on land and enough trouble getting back to the boat or beach alive (I'm a novice SCUBA diver).
The work of photographers like Christopher Newbert (Within a Rainbowed Sea) is so good that I know
I'll never approach it (leaving aside issues of natural talent, I know that I'm not going to go into the water
every day for ten years as he did). So I enjoy the underwater scene while I'm privileged to be on vacation
and underwater. Not every activity has to be productive.
http://www.photo.net/underwater/primer (8 of 23)7/3/2005 2:18:13 AM