Text by Jeremy Cuff/www.ja-universe.com
Photography by Jeremy & Amanda Cuff/www.ja-universe.com
More and more photographers are taking their interest into the water. So much so that a niche in the dive travel industry has grown up around the needs of underwater photographers wishing to improve their work. To do this we travelled to Bonaire in the south of the Caribbean with leading underwater photographer and teacher Martin Edge…
Back in the autumn of 2000, we attended a weekend underwater photography course in Bournemouth with leading underwater photographer and teacher Martin Edge. In our conversations prior to the course, Martin said that he could eliminate years of frustration in just two days. Having recently acquired our first underwater camera, the promise of achieving acceptable results within a short space of time was highly desirable.
Each year, Martin runs several courses in Bournemouth using a mixture of classroom and pool sessions to pass on his knowledge. His success as a teacher of underwater photography is in his ability to demystify the subject and explain the basics in simple, layman’s terms.Rather than guarding his “trade secrets,” one of his greatest pleasures is passing on his knowledge. He says, “There’s enough room for everybody.”
After explaining his techniques, students visit a swimming pool and practice photographing plastic flowers anchored to the bottom of the pool. Jokes abound about grown men engaged in such an activity but there is, of course, a serious purpose. Overnight, Martin will develop the films and discuss the results with the class the following day, explaining what worked and why, and what didn’t work and why.
After the course, the results achieved with our Sea & Sea Motormarine II were encouraging and prompted our investment in a more advanced (and expensive) housed SLR set-up. We would use it for the first time in Bonaire.
The island of Bonaire is part of the Netherlands Antilles, situated in the very south of the Caribbean, close to the neighbouring island of Curacao, and Venezuela on the South American mainland. The island has excellent diving and endless underwater photo opportunities – chosen by Martin for its suitability to learning underwater photography in “real” diving conditions.
The dive resort, Captain Don’s Habitat, is a well run operation with an excellent dive team, an E6 processing lab, classroom facilities, friendly staff and a good restaurant and bar.
Many of the dive sites around Bonaire form part of an extensive Marine Park that includes the uninhabited Klein Bonaire, a short boat ride away from the main island. Each visiting diver is asked to contribute US$10 towards the park’s funds – which includes diver education, the establishment and maintenance of mooring lines and regular checks on the activities of dive boats.
A week could be well spent photographing the prolific and varied life on the house reef alone…just pick up a tank and go – day or night thanks to Captain Don’s “Diving Freedom” philosophy.
On night dives around the house reef a large tarpon called Charlie will often follow divers, waiting to zoom into the lamplight at the sight of a meal. Divers unaware of his presence have been seriously startled by his opportunistic feeding – prompting the dive team to warn each visiting diver of his nocturnal antics.
In a wider sense, there’s much life to see and photograph in the waters around Bonaire. Over the course of the week sightings included numerous species of moray eel, snake eels, peacock flounders, scorpionfish, octopus, cornetfish, tuna, parrotfish, goatfish, lobster, anemones, barracuda, groupers, worms, nudibranchs, impressive sponges, vivid corals and much more. Of the highlights were a well-concealed seahorse on the house reef and a fascinating group of Caribbean reef squid at the Town Pier site. Other prized sightings around Bonaire are frogfish, turtles and the occasional eagle ray or shark.
The course is designed to start where the weekend courses leave off and included “photo dives” at sites of Martin’s choosing plus the opportunity of additional shore or boat diving. Each night, lively classroom sessions allowed the photographers to discuss, display, criticise and troubleshoot their work, with films developed by the helpful “Exposures” photo lab team of Wilco and Ernst at the resort. Martin himself was also available for individual tuition and advice, to discuss results the unique aspirations of the each photographer.
Many of the dives were spent underneath two piers – Salt Pier and Town Pier – noted for their overall suitability for photography with abundant marine life in easy conditions and shallow depth. Both sites are magical “wide angle” dives with an infinite number of possibilities presented using legs of the piers. Colourful corals and sponges add even more to this fabulous potential.
Martin is a great advocate of what he calls “photo dives” – dives where the sole purpose is to take photographs. This may sound obvious advice to non-divers, but in practice, most diving is usually conducted in groups where dive guides will lead the group from one point to another with little or no time to stop and concentrate on any particular subject or feature – and the best underwater photography requires concentration. I could relate to this from previous experiences. Martin once said, “If I dive with a group, I doubt if my results would be that much better than anyone else who is trying to snatch images whilst trying to keep up with the rest of the divers.” Clearly a different approach is required.
Martin also recommends “easy dives” for photo dives, as a stressed diver is unlikely to have the mental capacity to make the decisions necessary for good underwater photography. This does not necessarily limit underwater photography to easy and shallow dive sites, although a budding underwater photographer will find it much easier to learn their skills in these circumstances. Only later, with more experience is it wise for the photographer to tackle more challenging and stressful dive sites.
Knowledge of photography in an underwater environment is perhaps at its most crucial when the diver chances upon an unrepeatable event. A coral fan will be there on the next dive but a shark or a manta ray probably won’t be – so you’re then reliant on your skills to capture that moment. If the photographer is using housings, lenses cannot be changed underwater so you are stuck with youroriginal choice – forcing the photographer to decide what kind of images he or she wishes to capture before going into the water. Also, films cannot be rewound and changed underwater giving the photographer a maximum of 36 chances per dive to capture the images required. Once the film is finished, the “photo dive” is over. Whatever else you see, however photogenic or incredible, must go unrecorded if the film is finished. This constraint also forces the photographer to think and be economical with the film.
Martin Edge is by no means the only underwater photographer who teaches his skills to students. A leaf through some scuba diving magazines or dive tour brochures will reveal several other leading underwater photographers advertising seminars and workshops. Several good books on the subject have also been written including Martin’s “The Underwater Photographer” and Mark Webster’s “The Art and Technique of Underwater Photography.” The annual Dive Show gathering at Birmingham’s NEC is also a good place to get inspiration as many of the leading lights in underwater photography are often present to give guest lectures on their work. I once sat in on a seminar by American underwater filmmaker and photographer Tom Campbell who described his career from his roots in photography to his most recent assignments for publications such as National Geographic and the Discovery Channel.
As well as classroom and pool based tuition, a niche in the dive travel industry has grown up around “Photo Dive” trips to dive destinations around the world.In addition to Bonaire, dive tour operators are now offering visits with like minded individuals to mouth watering dive destinations such as the island paradise of Sipadan in Borneo, California’s Kelp Forests, Corsica in the Mediterranean, the Sea of Cortez in Mexico, Kungkungan Bay in Sulawesi and areas of the Red Sea. Among the tour leaders for these trips are Martin Edge himself, Mark Webster, Linda Dunk, Gavin Anderson, and Malcolm Hey – all regularly published underwater photographers. In London, Steve Warren from Ocean Optics, a specialist in underwater photography equipment, is currently in the process of setting up courses and pool sessions where photographers can demonstrate and learn the use of camera equipment.
David Doubilet’s incredible book “Water Light Time” is perhaps the zenith of current underwater photography featuring fish eye, wide angle and macro work – a synthesis of his enthusiasm and technical ability coming together to record the truly strange, exotic and remarkable. It is this book that, perhaps, best captures the fascinating world of underwater photography.