The Art Of Diving

My first book, The Art Of Diving, has just been published. It is 272 pages long and contains 200 images, all mine except three that were taken by an "Eric Cheng", who some of you may know. The book costs £20 and is just going on sale in the UK, with releases in other countries and languages planned for the rest of the year. It is a large format, soft back book (to keep the price down and hopefully make it sell well).

It is a book about scuba diving and is a collaboration with author Nick Hanna - who did the words (I did the colouring in). Hopefully both the images and the text provide a fresh look at diving in 2006. It features Giles "supermodel" Shaxted on the cover.

UWP Mag has just published an interview Peter did with me about the book and I am really happy to answer any questions and share my first experience of getting a book published. I knew nothing about the world of publishing before doing this. So it has been a very educational experience.

The website for the book is http://www.artofdiving.com where you can see sample pages etc. Unfortunately most of the content of the site is in the members only section. There is a password in the book that gives you access to this.

There is also quite a bit about the book on My Website including a few different sample spreads and some of my favourite photos. Of course those who regularly check my galleries will not find that many surprises in the book.

It is on sale with amazon.co.uk taking advance orders. But they don't have any books yet, in fact I have not yet seen a finished copy! But should do in a couple of days. Anyway it is all jolly exciting and I can keep quiet no more!

Alex

Best wishes Alex.....I'm anxious to get a copy

Karl

Congrats, looks like a great book.

How do I get a signed copy?

What Arnon said!!!!

Congrats Alex, this is great! I will pre-order mine ASAP. Will there be an official launching/book signing event in the UK?

Luiz

Congrats Alex. I'd like a signed copy also.

Great work Alex. The cover alone will sell it! Look forward to seeing it soon.

Rand

The cover alone will sell it!

HAHA! International male model hotness will sell it to the female dive crowd, but what about the rest? YOu think Giles appeals to men too? ;-)

Congrats Alex - I can't wait to get my hands on the book.

Cheers

James

I see it is on Amazon.co.uk ... which is nice ... can't we buy from there and get it shipped internationally ? I know I can ...

I am going to have to get me a copy of myself ..

Looks like a great book, Alex! Just based on the sample pages on the website, I'd want a copy or two! Congrats!

Way to go, Alex. Lots of work, huh?

OK...I have to add to the "me too" list of wanting a signed copy...and I have to lose 20 pounds to buy the book?

if anyone would like ... have your copy ordered .. PM me for my mail address .. you can send it to me .. i will sign the cover for you and forward it on for a small price of shipping and ink

i knew i should have signed the cover photo for print Alex !

Congratulations Alex! I'm sure you're really happy it's all come together. I'll be ordering a signed copy!

Cheers,

Tony

Congrats Alex!!! Looks beautiful & very inspirational! Add me to the "I want a signed copy" list...

Thanks for all the encouragement! It is very exciting. As I am off to the States for the WP Shark trip next week I don't think I am going to have a chance to sort out signed copies for people until after I am back (21st March). If you want to see the book sooner then I'd suggest buying it direct from Amazon in the UK.

It was fantastic fun to do, and not that much like hard work. But then I only did the colouring in.

Here are some more spreads to whet the appetite:

This is definitely one of my favourite pages, opening spread for chapter 3:

Alex

I am not going to post stuff everytime something comes out as a great deal is planned, but one of the images from The AoD is featured as the Image Of The Week in the travel section of The Times (London) today.

Alex

That is simply an astounding image, Alex!

It really shows what a creative/artistic mind (and eye) you have! Not that I'd ever come close to mimicking the style, but do you mind telling us how you did it?! It almost looks like you used a tripod & took multiple shots of the exact same subject as he swam from one spot to another? Since I have such trouble getting ONE shot of pygmies in focus and properly lit (I'm usually trying to just stay steady on a wall in current!), I'm just in awe of how you could get multiples of the same one on the same patch of gorgonian, all in perfect focus and perfectly lit...

This is 4 shots of the same pygmy. Shot specifically for this composite. On artofdiving.com in the members area there is an extended caption that tells you more (you need the password from the book to access this area). This image is also available for freedownload as a screensaver, with one of the quotes from the book.

But basically it is just 4 shots of the same seahorse taken within about 10 secs and the seahorse jumped up, spun round and re-attached to the fan.

This was taken with the D100 (which has crap AF compared with my D2X, but it was still good enough to track this guy - even though I wasn't using a focussing light as they tend to make pygmies turn away from the camera).

I do feel that Nikon's have much better AF in low light low contrast than Canon's do. Although of course you 1DsMk2 has massively better AF than the D100 under normal conditions. But all cameras will hunt and fail to get AF on these sorts of subjects. The trick is to understand how to help the AF.

Getting the lighting right each time was easy - as I didn't change it at all between each shot. My Subtronics don't have an appreciable recycle time - so I can shoot as much as I like. I think that there are several other shots in the sequence.

Alex

Looks like a must have!!! I want one or probably more as gift to others. B)

Where else can I find it apart from Amazon, which cost almost as much as the book to ship express to where I am.

Is it available at Borders bookstore - Singapore or Kuala Lumpur? Or any bookshop Perth?

Thanks.