My 11 year old daughter talks about Alex Mustard

My 11 year old daughter is a budding photographer and she is going to get dive certified in the next month or two. We look at photos together and talk about them. I show her photos here on wetpixel and other underwater photo sites. A few weeks back we were looking at Alex's images with slave off camera lighting and she thought they were so cool (so did I). Anyway we have snorkeled with the Manatees twice in the past week first time was not so good as the visibility was terrible, however yesterday was pretty good. She has a hand me down Olympus 4mp camera and housing. I feel bad because the camera is really limiting her, however she has done pretty good so far. I have talked with her about upgrading her to a better camera like a G-9 for now and then eventually adding one strobe and then a second. Then she asks me does anyone use 4 strobes and I said no not really (I had forgotten about our previous talk about slave lighting) I was thinking she was asking about 4 strobes on the camera. She said well I'm eventually going to 3 strobes because I (she) wants to do photos like Alex Mustard of the back lit fish. Needless to say jaw almost hit the ground.

A very good friend of mine is selling his G-9 and a housing, so I will be picking that up for her this week, it's going to a little while before I can get her a strobe to go with it so for the time being she will have to learn how to use the on camera strobe or available light.

Mark

Ah the price of fame Alex.....

My missus talks about you too Alex, I don't come off favourably....

Paul C

Ha ha.

My parents had to suffer me talking about loads of underwater photographers when I was growing up. I think my father knows more about underwater photography than any other non-diver (with me boring him about it for years)! He certainly enjoys hearing about the fact that I have now met many of the people I spoke about when I was at school.

My girlfriend knows the real "Alex Mustard" is just called Alex and can be ridiculed on any number of levels.

More importantly, Mark, I am looking forward to seeing some of your daughters pix from Crystal River. I still haven't got mine on my website (too many good ones) although there are a few Snell's window images on my homepage (mixed in with Cayman brain corals).

Alex

Hehee... well the little ones learn incredibly fast. So what better way would there be, than to let them get familiar with the work of some of the best shooters out there

Cant wayt to see the results - so be sure to keep us posted!

Cheers

Karel

Hello Mark, my son, CJ, is 12 and has been shooting a G9 rig for a couple of seasons and gets on very well with it. Before, he used a Sea & Sea DX 8000 G and probably like your daughter did well but quickly came up against the camera's limitations. I'm sure the G9 will be a really useful camera for your daughter's progression, especially if you house it in an Ike and invest in some INON glass. Really looking forward to seeing her images!

Kudos to all you Fathers out there getting your kids involved in such a great hobby!

My father introduced me to guns, hunting, booze, and lap dances :lol: OK it wasn't all that bad!

Keep those kids hitting the shutter and display their pics.

A few updates…

My daughter Natalya was looking thru the current edition of Sport Diver Magazine and she brings it to my attention that there is an article called Shoot to Thrill, which is about the sharks of the Bahamas "and look who wrote it daddy Mr. Mustard" I'm going to have her real the whole thing and have her give a verbal review of what she read, she is so getting into this……

I appreciate the great words that people have written on here about getting kids or your children in to the sport, with that being said safety is my number one concern even though she is not diving just yet we still talk about some of the rules and what can happen if you don't follow them, so again safety is number one and I would not do this with her if I felt she was not ready or if this was something she did not want to.

I received a private message from one of our fellow Wetpixel members (who will remain anonymous, unless he wants to be known). This individual will not be diving for a little while and offered to loan us a YS-90DX strobe. I was really impressed with this generous offer and if we (my wife and I) can't figure a to purchase a strobe along with the camera and housing we may take this individual up on their offer…………Thank You………………

Below are some of the images that Natalya took during our 2 trips to see the Manatee's. The first day the visibility was terrible, however the second day was a lot better. I think she did pretty good with composition and framing, given the fact you are not supposed to dive down to the Manatee's. We are going to talk more in depth about her images and hope fully in next month we can back to the Manatee's with her new camera. I plan on having her practice with her new camera in pool so she can get accustom to using the new rig, then I want to wean her off automatic exposures and learn how to manipulate the exposure to her liking.

Thanks

Mark

This was the first day when the water was pretty dirty.

This was the first day when the water was pretty dirty.

A little soft in the focus or movement, but it's still nice.

How fantastic that she has such enthusiasm and some nice shots there.

Fabulous Natalya! Much better than I was taking when I was 11.

I managed to get my manatee images uploaded yesterday.

Mark, when you have finished with the magazine you couldn't send the issue to me. I don't get Sport Diver, so I'd like to see the feature as it is the biggest I have done for them (words and pictures) to date.

Alex

Alex, when I get the issue I will hold it for you also.

My boys had their first ocean snorkel in Bonaire over Xmas. They are 6 and 7 and first thing they saw was an octopus and then later an eel . They were excited about their encounters and it was the best start I could have hoped for in their introduction to the ocean.

Cheers

Todd

My boys had their first ocean snorkel in Bonaire over Xmas. They are 6 and 7 and first thing they saw was an octopus and then later an eel .

An octopus and an eel. I'd be excited, too.

Thanks for the offer of keeping the magazine.

Alex