Getting tired of "the light"

Its been said every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief

Is anyone else getting tired of W/A landscape shots with divers with a dive light pointed at the camera???? Are they becoming cliche?

I know, I know, they sell, they give a focal point, blah, blah blah

What put me over the top was a photo in magazine with a feature on diving in Seattle showing a diver coming on shore with his light in hand AND his light strapped to his mask, AHHHHHH!

Please no offense to all those with great versions of this picture and I can't wait to post my versions if I can ever get my wife to carry a light durring the day.

Ok I feel better, thanks.

When I raised this point yesterday in the "When you want shallow DOF" discussion (dSLR/housing forum) I thought perhaps this was better raised in a separate tread in order not to hijack the original discussion. So thanks for doing just that.

For me composition rules try to capture subliminal preferences of human taste and they can be very helpful to understand why certain images are more appealing (to many) then others. However, if you just apply the rules it takes all the creativity and spontaneity out of it. Knowing when you can break a rule and get away with it shows true mastership but then you really have to have a good knowledge or intuition for the logic behind the rules.

Eric Cheng posted an interesting series of thumbnails yesterday from a recent dive with annotations on why he chose and changed certain compositions. Some of these involve divers (no lights this time). Near the top a diver is swimming far in the background without distracting from the main eye catcher, an imposing red seafan. For me this shot worked as the diver didn't interfere with the image and added depth.

Near the bottom Eric lamented that he wanted a diver next to a large barrel sponge to give a sense of scale to indicate really how big the sponge was. Another logical use of a diver (although opening a can of nassau groupers and let them swim next to the sponge would be better).

A bit higher up, a hollow barrel sponge has fallen over and Eric suggested that it would have been nice to have a diver swim behind the sponge and appear in the hole of the sponge. You would have to see the result to judge if it worked, but I expect it would have looked like an over-engineered scene that just doesn't feel real. The two little fish instead make a beautiful and very natural composition.

One good thing about wetpixel is that you get to look at a lot of great images which I try to use to understand what they did to make it such a great image. The next step is to take this under water and try to sense a good picture before it has actually been shot. I've still got a long way to go but as long as I can learn by looking at great pictures I'm a happy student.

Bart

One thing to remember is that, as producers and (typically) massive consumers of underwater photography, we are different to most of the public. Including those who dive regularly but don't shoot for themselves. Thus I think that we get very jaded by the successful compositions that we see all the frickin time.

Personally, I hate slim models in their bright yellow neoprene voguing away in big old glass masks, staring intently while their light cannons illuminate the hapless soft coral in full daylight. But that's just me :glare:

i have a feeling this is going to be a great topic guys...

good post

I recently submitted a shot of a diver with torch, etc., to a dive magazine as part of an article. The diver was looking at a 'coral' growth but I had deliberately used selective focus to ensure that the diver was clearly part of the out of focus background. In due course I will find out whether the shot is to be used, but trying to break away from convention is difficult as convention IS convention because it is what is expected and doing something else is seen as risky. This shot was opportunistic and marginally posed with a stop signal only! I'll try to remember to post here if it is used.

Good thread.

Near the top a diver is swimming far in the background without distracting from the main eye catcher, an imposing red seafan. For me this shot worked as the diver didn't interfere with the image and added depth.

Bert, this format is one of my favourite; I like to see a human in the image - but not to the distraction

of the subject matter.

Near the bottom Eric lamented that he wanted a diver next to a large barrel sponge to give a sense of scale to indicate really how big the sponge was. Another logical use of a diver (although opening a can of nassau groupers and let them swim next to the sponge would be better).

If the target audience is the general public then I think a diver would be a better choice to give the sense of scale, as grouper size would be lost on (almost) all non-divers.

I too do get bored seeing the same 'formulaic' shots of posed divers: however I am mindful that I also bin a lot of my own pix as the diver subject just doesn't look right: legs/arms/gauges in the wrong place, etc.

Excellent thread. And by no means a new feeling.

That said, you are unlikely to win a European Fotosub event or even the CMAS world Championship without such a shot. They even have a category "Wide angle with diver" where this sort of shot is seen as a classic discipline in UW photograhy. And the same goes for being published in a lot of editorial.

These days more and more photographers are dropping the torch, but the silhouetted diver is still a useful way of communicating an encounter without the diver distracting too much from the main marinelife subject. These shots continue to sell because encounter shots sell diving.

This is an example of mine from a current issue of a magazine:

To counter that there are now an increasing number of publications that are also very tired of the classic diver with torch shots (particularly here in the UK). The art editor of Dive Magazine in the UK is well known for his dislike and total refusal to publish such images. One of the principles upon which the photo library Oceans-Image was founded was to present contenporary images of diving - specificallt stating that they will not promote images of soft corals with diver with torch!

But there are other dislikes too. Big oval masks that no real diver has used since the 1980s, or yellow or pink wetsuits which again are about 15 years out of date. But while photographers may laugh at such images, and dive magazines may refuse to publish their dated looks, the main stream media (newspapers etc), which usually pays the best, love these images. And there is no doubting that they continue to sell.

Alex

no doubt, two of my good friends use exactly that.. the cheesey big mask and bright model... but they continue to sell. and i also know a few art directors that hate that..

they are members here and they know who they are!!! so i have no qualms with calling them cheesey here..

That being said, i do like a good model who can silhoutte a nice background. Often times having that model off in the background in a WA shot adds that missing piece to open blue back groud, especially a model who is good at placing themselves well and looks natural as opposed to flailing legs..

For close interaction shots i prefer to use diver with camera as a prop, not diver with light... much more realistic looking in a tropical blue noon daylight setting than a bright flashlight

But there are other dislikes too. Big oval masks that no real diver has used since the 1980s, or yellow or pink wetsuits which again are about 15 years out of date. But while photographers may laugh at such images, and dive magazines may refuse to publish their dated looks, the main stream media (newspapers etc), which usually pays the best, love these images. And there is no doubting that they continue to sell.

Whew, I even tend to get the rash from seeing divers in photos with lots of danglies doing the coral-smashing-silt-raising-wreck-destroying-and-overall-inferior scissors kick. Luckily most of my models are GUE trained or equally skilled... A horizontally hovering diver in control of her buoancy in streamlined gear is so much more pleasing to the eye.

//LN

Fascinating thread. I've had exactly the opposite experience to Alex's!

I don't shoot fisheye very often and my medium wide-angle images tend to portray 'reality' or should I say 'actuality' rather than be substantially posed. In the somewhat 'faddy' world of publications and underwater photography, this excludes some users but is liked by others. There is nothing wrong with divers using a torch in an image (to show a diver not doing so around Scotland would be a bit unrealistic IMHO) but when over used in a formulaic composition the resulting images do become 'tired' due to overexposure (pardon the pun).

Of course it all depends what you are shooting, why and for whom.

I think Paul raises the most important point of all - that we should all do things are own way. Otherwise we will all end up taking the same image!

The whole reason for having more than one underwater photographer in the world is to see different styles and interpretations of subjects.

Alex

Good to hear I'm not the only one. I agree one of my favorite shots is the WA with the diver waaaaay in the background. Here is one of those shots I look at and think, this would be perfect if it had a diver in it.

I just want to mention before i say anything else... if I could buy a good oval shaped mask I would have one in a heart beat.

If you ever used a good one you know how good they are ... very few modern masks rival them. As for the pink and yellow .. i may agree.

for the past 3 years I have mostly excluded all human presence from my images. Because I used to take about 100 a day with people in them for my job. It would be fun to try some again soon, but I really don't do enough shooting now to set it up. Although I have lots of girlfriends who keep asking to come and have some photos taken .. damn .. i'm stupid .. anyways.

I would never want to see a flash light in my images. but .. i do like strobe burst every so often !! which in a very static image can make it look like activity. Of course that isn't such a great thing on a silhouette .. but works nicely for a scenic shot where the diver isn't the main subject IMO.

I don't think you can dispell these so called cliche images. I think they are still done very well by some photographers. I think it was only a few years ago PADI took the footage of Cayman (bob sotos) out of the new OW video (dvd) which was probably all shot in the 70's ealry 80's. I actually enjoyed seeing it .. saying .. i worked with them .. oh i remember that .... but for different reasons than the day glo skins and tank covers.

did anyone notice the shot that won POTW ?

I think it's awesome ....although i like seeing the diver darker ... you can't say that image isn't good ... but since this topic brought it up ... the flashlight is not doing anything dive wise .. so now it looks stupid to me .. damn this topic .. i'll always notice the flashlight pointing no-where now !

There are times when it is ESSENTIAL to have a diver with a torch! The Menai Strait, just a few miles away, is not known for its clarity and to show just what it is like......

There are times when it is ESSENTIAL to have a diver with a torch! The Menai Strait, just a few miles away, is not known for its clarity and to show just what it is like......

I have to agree. This was on the Shuna on the west coast of Scotland which was at about 25m - the torch was very necessary in this case and adds to the picture.

Then again, this is far away from the cliched image.

Tim