Yes,
I too think there is a difference between creative and innovative. To me a piece of creative work can be a one-off. Something you can do with techniques everyone is familiar with, but you just apply them differently, maybe at a whim. Or maybe you just aim to perfect one method without worrying about it being old-fashioned. I still believe the best lanscape photographers use large format film cameras - not exactly at the height of modern technology, those.
Innovation, then, to me is something you consciously cultivate in order to make repeatable results. Innovation often involves new technology or at least a radical diversion from the way old technology has been used. Much like Alex is doing with the different techniques he is developing for u/w. This, of course, is not to say the two would be mutually exlusive. Quite the contrary as I will discuss below.
There was a discussion much like this on the Finnish nature photographer forum some time ago.
Basically, for a long time the scene had been dominated by "big projects" involving months and months in a hide to produce fantastic images of bear, wolverine, wolf, etc. Something clearly beoynd the reach of ordinary mortals like myself. The value of an image tended to be defined by how difficult it was to make. Either in terms of hours in a hide, danger of freezing to death, lack of light or any combination thereof.
Then, a couple of years ago - quite possibly coinciding with the emergence of digital photography - "ordinary" subjects started to do well in competitions. Starting from moose and deer and then progressing to - god forbid - lanscapes, images everyone had access to started to win. The oldtimers were complaining, of course, but that did not change the situation any.
So, was there a sudden surge of innovation in techniques driving the change? I do not think so. I believe it was merely more people bringing more new ideas to the game. And being - as they often were - amateurs, they could not afford the three month stint in the wilderness for the sake of one competition winning image.
Was it that the "new" images were artistically better, or just that the juries wanted something diffrent for a change, is of course difficult to judge in absolute terms. What we know, though, is that the emergence of a "new style" was not about someone "going to Lembeh with a different camera" but rather someone going to the duckpond in the park with a vision.
In general, the digital revolution has brough too many engineers into photography. Being one - and rather hardcore at that - I know we tend to get a hard-on being able to buy new gadgets and try new techniques. But at least for myself, that has never improved my pictures artistically. Often on the contrary, in fact. Being too preoccupied with the technicalities tends to make me lose the vision of what I actually want to say.
There is a good book by David Ward called "Landscape within" where he discusses these topics from a very non-technical point-of-view. I think there is a lot in his arguments favoring the vision of the photographer over the difficulty of the subject or the fanciness of techniques used to capture an image. Nothing new in that, really, but he has a way of saying it that makes me want to try.
So, to return to the original questions: Since practically all subjects in the conventional scuba diving range have pretty much been done to death by some excellent photographers already, the only ways you can really be different are either to go beyond the conventional depth range or by creating totally new techniques allowing you to show the conventional subjects in a totally new way. Both approaches naturally assume you actually have the artistic vision to pull off whatever it is you are trying to say. Sadly, though, the more technology intensive photography gets, the more the artistic side seems to fall subordinate to the technical showoff.
Just my EUR 0,02,
timo
Innovation is a keey factor that drives civilisation. Monkeys remain monkeys because their world essentially stays the same...
there is certainly space for innovation in UW digital photography. Just look at Alex' filters. Sure, they are filters, and filters have been used for ages in photography, but they are an innovative product, and there are many more (e.g. the fluorescence filters, by NightSea, etc.). And this is just touching on products, but I believe there is an even broader open filed when we move on to compositions, digital editing, etc.
