Underwater Photography.
Under water photography is the process of taking photographs while under water. Under water photography is usually done whilst scuba diving, but also can be done whilst swimming or snorkeling too.
With underwater photography you need to have special equipment, which is waterproof, as you don’t want your stuff to get damaged. It also has to be done with special techniques to get good photographs of the animals mostly fish and marine life. But underwater photography doesn’t just have to be animals, as you can take photos of people, landscapes such as ship wrecks or underwater caves.
This photo is an example of Underwater photography done with people:
A famous underwater photographer is called David Doubilet.
This is the link to his website: http://www.daviddoubilet.com/portfolio.asp
All the photographs i use below are taken from his website.
He has many photos from marine life to humans.
These are a few of his photographs from his portfolio:
This photograph is of David and Jennifer Hayes, who is an aquatic biologist and photojournalist specialized in national history and marine environments.
This photo is called Devils Eye Spring, Florida 00080.
This photograph is the Wreck of Japanese Zero, Rabaul, Papua, New Guinea 00136.
He has also taken many photos for the National Geographic magazine, these are some of the front covers:
David Doubilet began snorkeling at age 8, by the age of 12 David was making pictures underwater with a Brownie Hawkeye camera, so he has been interested in it for most of his life from a young age. David has tried many ways and finally mastered the technique of working underwater and the light to become the worlds most celebrated underwater photographer.
He has been from country to country including Africa, the northern sea, the southern sea and many more.
Not also is David a photographer, he is an editor and also an author of 12 books including the award winning Water Light Time.
He has many awards including numerous Picture of the year, BBC wildlife, Communication Arts and World Press awards.
David lives with his wife and work partner, Jennifer Hayes in New York.
Zena Holloway
Zena has many different photo shoots, one is called 'Fabulous' which is Tulisa, the photos above. I got all these photos from her website www.zenaholloway.com. These are some more of her photos from her shoots:
This photo is form the shoot B.INSPIRED.
This is a photograph of Zena in mid photography with the equipment she uses, i also got this photo off her website:
Zena was born in Bahrain in 1973, but was raised in London. She self taught her self to become an underwater photographer. In 1996 Zena completed her first advertising campaign for Faberge.
Elaine White
Elaine White is known for taking photos of sea animals such as seals to whale sharks. After learning to dive in 2001 she decided to combine both photography and diving together and started underwater photography. She has been around the world from the Maldives, the north east of England across the coast to the Farnes Islands.
In 2009 Elaine was a runner up for BSAC Underwater Photography Competition, now she has an exhibition of her work at the Denbigh Chocolate shop in North Wales.
This is a quote from Elaine on her website 'www.elainewhitephotography.co.uk'
“I love everything about being underwater and feel privileged that I can enjoy and photograph the whole experience. No two dives are ever the same and you can never predict what you will see – so often the beauty is in the detail and I enjoy the challenge of capturing the unexpected.”
This is a photograph of Elaine with her underwater camera.
These are some of the photos from her portfolio on her website:
http://www.pendulum.com/video,making-of-the-immersion-artwork_17.htm - this is a link for the website of Pendulum, they had an underwater photo shoot in a tank for there album art work for Immersion. You can see Storm Thorgerson the art director for the whole shoot overviewing everyone and the photographer Rupert Truman was doing everything okay. Lee Baker the shoot co-ordinator at storm studios is making sure everything and everyone were in the right place on the shoot and how the acted also, Sadie Collins who was one of the models on the shoot expressed how much she enjoyed working for Storm and that he enjoyed working underwater because it was fun and the posture that everyone has looks brilliant, which i agree.
This is the final product for the album after being edited and photoshopped:
What Type of Cameras Do Photographers Use?
There are three different types of under water cameras, amphibious cameras for use down to 10 metres, amphibious cameras for use down to 50 metres and housed land cameras.
Amphibious cameras for use down to 10 metres have rapidly grown in the last 5 years, at first there was only one the Weathermatic, a 110 format camera but now there are many 35mm shallow water cameras available from many companies such as Canon (AS6), Nikon (L25AV) and finally Fuji (RDK).
Amphibious cameras for use down to 50 metres is extremely limited, but this is the camera choice that is used by most underwater photographers so is very popular. The most popular camera for proffesional photography is the Nikonos which is fully waterproof down to 50m under the water.
Camera housings is the alternative to an amphibious camera, as you use a land camera but put that into an underwater housing. These can range from 10 metres underwater and 100 metres.
This is an example of a camera housing:
I got this photo from ' http://www.bsoup.org/Articles/UW_Cameras.php '
The history of Underwater Photography
Underwater photography has been around for many years, the first underwater photograph was taken on a camera mounted on a pole in 1856 by William Thompson. Then in 1983 the first diving photograph was taken when Louis Boutan went diving wearing special gear. In the Bahamas in 1914 John Ernest Williamson shot the first motion picture underwater. In 1926 W. H. Longley and Charles Martin take the first colour underwater photograph using a magnesium powered flash to take the best photo they could. In 1957 the Calypso-Phot camera was designed by Jean De Wouters which has a maximum of 1/1000 second shutter speed which was produced later on by Nikon with a very similar look but 1/500 second shutter speed which became the best selling underwater camera.
Under Water Flash used by photographers
Trying to create the best look and light under water is the hardest challenge a photographer has, this is often regarded as the hardest part in underwater photography. The light used is generally from a flash or a strobe, wide angle images are usually 100% strobe light to get the best view with using the sunlight reflecting off the water.
Cameras now have simplified the process of trying to find a balance between sunlight and strobe light by using a TTL (through-the0-lens) metering.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Underwater Photography
There are many different advantages of underwater photography, these are a few of them:
- Marine photography is good exercise to go diving while holding huge heavy equipment in the process, it keeps you healthy instead of a normal job.
- The experience of underwater photography is amazing as you can capture photos of any animal or any underwater ruin while doing there job!
The disadvantages are that it can be very dangerous with the heavy equipment and the current and tidal flow, it may be that the heavy equipment can get damaged, lost and many other things. Also swimming with sea life can be very dangerous as you do not know whether the animals are going to sting, bite and many more while taking photos and doing your job! Another disadvantage is that there can be boats and many things that can interfere while taking the photos.
Evaluation
Overall, i think that Underwater photography is fascinating and interesting the way that they can go so far down underwater and create an amazing shot whilst also worrying about everything else such as things around them, all there equipment, whether the lighting is correct, hoping that there safety is okay.
I think that it is a very interesting job, however i think you need to be very persistent with this job as you need to travel around the world to get best shots from different areas.
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