Underwater photography ‘seacrets’

‘Cur­rents push­ing you around, low vis­i­bil­i­ty and marine life that often dis­ap­pears into a hid­ing hole are just some of the chal­lenges of under­wa­ter pho­tog­ra­phy,’ says Carl.

‘Depend­ing on the sub­ject mat­ter, the expe­ri­ence of tak­ing pho­tos under­wa­ter can range from peace­ful through to exhil­a­rat­ing. The relax­ation expe­ri­enced is like med­i­ta­tion – you think of noth­ing else but your sur­round­ings, your dive gauges and cam­era set­tings the entire dive.

‘Knowl­edge of the ecol­o­gy of the marine life you wish to pho­to­graph and a good eye for spot­ting ani­mals that are cam­ou­flaged are as impor­tant as knowl­edge of your cam­era and a knack for cre­ative composition.

‘When I plan a dive trip I usu­al­ly have a fair­ly good idea what to expect, either from per­son­al expe­ri­ence, descrip­tions from a dive bud­dy or from dive site infor­ma­tion that I’ve read. The hard­est part for me is choos­ing whether to ded­i­cate the dive to macro (close up), wide angle, video or a com­bi­na­tion. A dive site with man-made struc­tures like wrecks and jet­ty pylons lends itself per­fect­ly to a wide angle or fish­eye lens.

‘Reefs inhab­it­ed by small cryp­tic crit­ters call for a macro lens and a wide angle GoPro cam­era is per­fect for sur­prise vis­its from rays, large schools of fish or maybe a shark.

‘Weedy and leafy sea drag­ons are my favourite ani­mals to pho­to­graph. When I encounter a sea drag­on I try to hang back at a dis­tance and study the ani­mal – watch for its nat­ur­al behav­iour and try to pre­dict its swim path. Sea drag­ons are one of the slow­est marine ani­mals but they can manœu­vre quite effi­cient­ly and will always shy away from humans. It’s impor­tant not to crowd these crea­tures so I like to dive only with one oth­er div­er if pos­si­ble. I take only a few pho­tos of each sea drag­on encoun­tered — a cou­ple of flash pho­tos and then a nat­ur­al light photo.

‘Angler­fish or frog­fish are one of the most dif­fi­cult ani­mals to pho­to­graph. They often hide under things and are so well cam­ou­flaged that you don’t see them even when up close. It isn’t until you have spot­ted angler­fish a few times that you get an eye for them. I can now see tassled angler­fish and smooth angler­fish from a dis­tance. They often resem­ble the sponge and algae they sit on wait­ing for their prey to swim past. They are very clum­sy fish with large pec­toral fins that they use as ​‘hands’ to walk on – sway­ing side to side and falling over in mild current.

‘One of the most amaz­ing marine crea­tures to pho­to­graph is the giant Aus­tralian cut­tle­fish. The giant cut­tle­fish lives for only two to three years but grows in that time to over three feet long. Dur­ing the win­ter months, the cut­tle­fish con­gre­gate near Whyal­la in the hun­dreds of thou­sands. The male cut­tle­fish aban­dons its nor­mal­ly cryp­tic colours and takes on a mag­nif­i­cent rain­bow of rapid­ly chang­ing colours to attract the female. The cut­tle­fish are obliv­i­ous to me tak­ing pho­tos as they swim around, mate and lay eggs under the rock ledges.

‘One of my favourite dives is the pin­na­cles off Snap­per Point at Aldin­ga. This marine reserve has been pro­tect­ed from fish­ing pres­sures since the 1970s and hous­es a rich diver­si­ty of marine life. Mul­ti­coloured sponges, soft corals, algaes and oth­er inver­te­brates pro­vide food and habi­tat to a range of fish species. This is the only dive site I’ve spot­ted wobbe­gong sharks, black cowry shells with eggs and har­le­quin fish wait­ing patient­ly for their prey to swim past. There are huge schools of sil­ver drum­mer fish and also clouds of reef fish that call this reef home.

‘The chal­lenge of record­ing rare marine life and also improv­ing on past images with dif­fer­ent angles, com­po­si­tion and cam­era set­tings keeps me com­ing back time and time again. There could be a rare nudi­branch (sea slug) or juve­nile sea drag­on just around that next cor­ner of the reef, wreck or jetty.’

Great thanks to Carl for shar­ing these insights. Why not try some under­wa­ter pho­tog­ra­phy your­self? Talk to a cam­era retail­er or look online for what is avail­able. A cheap dis­pos­able under­wa­ter cam­era can cost as lit­tle as $20.

And do send us a few of your pics.

The Good Liv­ing Team

All pho­tos used in this arti­cle are copy­right Carl Charter.