Purpose of Photography

I am having some trouble changing the way I take pictures under water. Since I began UW photography a very short time ago, I have always wanted to put together a fish ID catalogue of local animals I have seeen which I call more the "scientific" type of photos. The fish or subject is in the middle of the picture with most of it's identifying features showing. Now, the more I take pictures, the more I am starting to like the artistic type of scenery following the rule of thirds, etc. Does anyone have some advice that will focus me more on the later type of portrait photography that other non-divers and divers alike ooh and aah over?

Buy some books! Start with Jim Church's Essential Guide to Composition, and buy some more after that. Browse through great photographers' websites and get inspiration from their shots.

I went through exaclty the same process (from fish ID shots to thinking about composition etc) a year ago. You can compare my old galleries (Bali 2001, Brazil, Florida, Marquesas) with the newer ones (all digital galleries, Bali 2005) and you will see a clear difference. Here is the link to my galleries.

Aloha,

Luiz

I am having some trouble changing the way I take pictures under water.  Since I began UW photography a very short time ago, I have always wanted to put together a fish ID catalogue of local animals I have seeen which I call more the "scientific" type of photos.  The fish or subject is in the middle of the picture with most of it's identifying features showing.  Now, the more I take  pictures, the more I am starting to like the artistic type of scenery following the rule of thirds, etc.  Does anyone have some advice that will focus me more on the later type of portrait photography that other non-divers and divers alike ooh and aah over?

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Hi Pat,

I'm also (still) in the fish ID science-style photography and (still) lovin'it. I also use it to keep up my fish-id skill in the 12-18 months of drought between dive holidays. For that, it is actually nice to have shots of fish showing only the head, tail or back because it really focuses you to recognize key-id features all over the body, rather than the picture perfect side-shot. When I practice Fish-ID with a book I often find that I remember the name because it is the fish on the right bottom of the page, coming just after the creole wrasse. That doesn't help you underwater. Having lots of shots from different view points is nice. Of course this is all a lame excuse for the large number of poor shots that I have been making with a slow point&shoot camera. When I hit the water 3 weeks and 2.5 days from now with my new dSLR I hope to join the ranks with ooh and aah pictures

Bart

Bart, I'm definitely LOL when you mentioned the lame excuse for poor shots with a slow P&S. Been there...still doing that!

Working on it

Luiz, I have one book so far, The Underwater Photographer by Martin Edge. This book is the one that has got me thinking and prompted the question. Thanks for the other recommendation.

Pat.

you have an excellent book. I am waiting for my 3rd edition copy from Amazon.

I have been shooting pixs for a year and my biggest inspiration has been looking at fellow member's galleries. I try to evaluate each picture I like to see why I liked it. What makes these pictures special.

The nice thing about digital is that you are really only limited by the amount of air in your tank. Take a bunch of pictures of the same scene. When you review them at night, you can see what worked and what didn't.

LOL, I'm a scientist and my first class in scientific photography actually trained me to put the subject in the dead center of the image. Years later I joined a photography club and learned the hard way much better composition techniques.

You can still follow the rule of thirds with your portrait shots as well, put the center of interest, often the fish's eye, in one of the intersections. I'd suggest mixing wide angle and portrait shots together when you show off your work. Show a reef, and then a specific fish from that reef, etc.