I have always admired your work as a photographer – and as you say, that comes down to your ability to communicate in an effective and clear manner. I’m not there yet, but feel like I am moving in the right direction finally – it’s taken a while!

Will certainly meet again. I’m searching for an apartment in Bali at the moment, going to use it as a base for work around SE Asia. I’m hoping to get a 3-4 bedroom place with enough room for friends to stay or use as a base when I am away – and you’re always welcome!

I only just came across this post. Better late than never.

I completely agree with your logic. If anything, the ability to post images online has hastened the trend toward emphasizing the mediocre and humdrum. This is certainly not unique to u/w photography, but rapid dissemination of photos has reinforced propagation of memes-of-the-moment, often at the expense of thought and quality.

The sudden flurry of really bad images taken with snoots in recent months, for instance, has been annoying at best. It’s amusing that so many people seem to believe that snoots are a technical innovation, but that in itself wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t so many awful photographs being touted as good ones (with the attendant flurry of copycat snapshots) simply because someone used a snoot.

The telling of a story and communication of a clear and meaningful message with images, text and video is the reason I keep plugging away. As you insightfully point out, however, the number of outlets for such thought- and effort-intensive output is decreasing day by day…not just in the case of u/w photography of course.

Anyway, I’ve been keeping up with your travels as best as I can, and I admire what you’re doing. Keep up the great work, and I hope we’ll have a chance to cross paths again soon.

T

http://chriscrumley.com/Portfolio_WetUnderwater/0

Jon – I think photogs are going to have to reinvent themselves over the next few years. I have been looking at going back to shooting video, as well as recording audio/interviews, and producing multi-media pieces to sell, rather than individual images. Something I need to work on I think…

Mark – Not going to sell the gear just yet! Hopefully will be back out there sooner rather than later.

Daniel – That is exactly what I need to be doing – I think walking away for awhile makes a great deal of sense. Half the problem is that I have no experience other than shooting underwater, so feel I have a very long way to go. But I am going to throw myself in and start working on some ideas, hopefully in the not-too-distant-future.

waitinginthedark – thanks for the link, it can be a very real problem. I used to work as a dive master in Sabah and used to get very angry with idiot divers acting as models and grabbing turtles, or photogs lying across delicate corals – very frustrating. But I don’t think certification will do much – who will enforce it?

Chris – bizarre camera! And it will of course mean divers have 2 hands to grab corals etc etc, not good…

A link for you all – par of Michael Muller’s portfolio http://www.krop.com/muller/portfolio/13565/. In my opinion, more images like these should grace the pages of u/w photography and diving magazines. Fine, they are from a very dramatic location, but the photographer has managed to put HIS stamp all over the images, interpreting the expedition in his own particular way.

I find half the problem now is that a non-diving editor is thrilled by these simplest of generic pictures that you mentioned in the first paragraph… and they’re happy and thrilled to use them in their publication…

Anyway – now it’s only going to get worse: http://pointofviewcameras.com/all-cameras/by-brand/liquid-image/liquid-image-video-scuba-mask-hd320.html

I was impressed by reading your post. I felt the bitterness of becoming aware that your passion is something that will never totally become true. Too many obstacles…

I love diving, and I enjoy looking at u/w photos. I’m underlining “looking” because I believe that I am one of the few divers left that has deliberately chosen NOT to practice u/w photography. I just want to fully enjoy my dive. When other divers ask me why I do not happen to have an u/w camera, I simply answer: “what’s the point of taking normal pictures, when I can find hundreds beautiful on the internet”?

The truth is… at the end of the day those people are neither divers nor photographers. I’ve thought about that, clearly from a diver’s perspective. You might be maybe interested in a post I wrote some time ago, regarding the incredible negative impact of more or less improvised u/w photographers on the environment (http://exxxplorer.wordpress.com/2009/07/26/lets-stop-the-reef-ravages-caused-by-underwater-photographers/). In my view, that the worst thing. How many damages… for what?

I always remember Galen Rowell’s quote about letting your experience validate your images rather than vice versa. While I have not personally had the opportunity to conduct u/w photography but have always wanted to, I can only imagine the sheer joy I would experience seeing all those wondrous creatures in the amazing underwater world. Maybe one of these days, you’ll have a desire to return back to u/w photographer with a refreshed perspective and the eyes of a child, and find the joy you first experienced when you first started out. But sometimes you have to walk away first.

~Daniel Stainer