Alex Mustard’s newest guide 52 Assignments: Underwater Pictures is full of nice ideas to enhance your approach. Listed below are three of the assignments to get you going.
ASSIGNMENT 1: AVAILABLE LIGHT FANTASTIC
Your process for this project is to {photograph} in out there gentle, and I don’t thoughts what you shoot. Obtainable gentle fits shallow coralscapes, kelp and seaweed forests, large animals, pelagic motion, wrecks, freedivers, and extra. Your purpose is to make sturdy compositions, unencumbered by utilizing flash.
After I counsel on my workshops that photographers dedicate their subsequent dive to capturing in out there gentle, and go away their underwater flashguns on the boat, it all the time will get an unenthusiastic response. A hand inevitably goes up, adopted by a ‘What if I see…?’ query.
Worry of lacking out impacts us all. Sarcastically, photographers involved about lacking a shot lose way more by skipping the problem, as a result of few issues will enhance you extra as an underwater photographer than a couple of dives capturing with solely out there gentle.
Underwater gentle could be very completely different to that on land. The peak of the solar within the sky, clouds, sea state, visibility, and depth all affect on the photographic traits of sunshine underwater. The extra time you spend working with out there gentle, the higher positioned you’re to use it, even when additionally utilizing flash in your photographs.
So, whereas I hope you get some gorgeous available-light photographs, the reward of this project is extra within the expertise and data you accumulate.
Once you evaluate your photographs, contemplate how they’d have been completely different with the usage of flash.
TIPS
The course of sunshine has a large affect on the look of your photographs. Shoot with the sunshine in your again for the very best color intimately, and work throughout or in opposition to it for distinction and shadow.
With out the moment burst of flash to freeze motion, preserve your shutter pace at 1/ninetieth of a second or quicker.
Auto-exposure modes do work with out there gentle, however I counsel capturing in Guide mode, as underwater gentle is constant and you’ll do much less work dialling in Guide than continually twiddling with the EV to get your auto publicity to be appropriate on completely different scenes.
Underwater gentle comes down primarily from above, so pointing the digital camera upward or downward has a big effect on the look of your photographs. Level down for color and element, level up for shadow and distinction.
Vegetation resembling kelp and seaweeds look their finest backlit by the solar, so shoot from their shadow aspect in the direction of the sunshine to get them to gentle up. That is way more efficient than making an attempt to gentle them together with your flashes.
ASSIGNMENT 28: SIMPLE IS STRONG
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the creator of The Little Prince, famously mentioned, ‘Perfection is achieved, not when there’s nothing extra so as to add, however when there’s nothing left to remove.’ His phrases are a wonderful guideline for macro pictures, particularly underwater, which is often characterised by a riot of life.
The problem of simplifying your compositions is the theme of this macro project. Shoot after which rigorously evaluate every picture, asking your self if each aspect is contributing. If it isn’t, eliminate it. Easy photographs are all the time eye-catching – and extremely popular on social media.
In macro pictures, there are a bunch of strategies for simplifying photographs. Maybe the simplest is framing a topic in opposition to open water, making a clear black background. An analogous impact might be achieved with a snoot.
For this project, nevertheless, the simplifying approach is to make use of a shallow depth of area to blur any distractions. In macro capturing, this may be achieved by opening the aperture or shifting nearer, if solely by a small quantity – macro photographers usually overlook how powerfully depth of area might be decreased by rising topic magnification.
Additionally, contemplate how the place of the topic in its atmosphere impacts its photographic potential. It’s common to come across a number of people of a species on a dive, however one could provide way more potential than the others as a result of the place it lives will have an effect on how the remainder of the body will {photograph}.
TIPS
- There isn’t any magical aperture setting for attaining the optimum depth of area in macro capturing. As an alternative, the very best strategy is to shoot, evaluate, and alter till you obtain the specified impact
- Don’t get fixated on the topic when framing and reviewing your photographs. Keep in mind to contemplate the damaging house and alter your composition, lighting, and settings to optimise your complete body for a stand-out shot.
ASSIGNMENT 51: TELL A STORY
There are many photographers who can take a fantastic image, however far fewer who can create photographs that talk and inform a narrative. For this project, I need you to change into a photojournalist and construct a story throughout 5 photographs.
That is prone to take a number of dives and utilise a number of completely different lenses and photographic strategies.
Step one is to resolve on a subject. You would possibly select to explain a shipwreck, reveal the secrets and techniques of a species, or just inform the story of a dive.
Keep away from repetition, with every picture specializing in a unique facet of the story. For a wreck, you might shoot an atmospheric picture, then an enormous shot of the bow, a close-up of an attention-grabbing artefact, some marine life residing on the wreck, and a diver exploring.
Taking pictures a nudibranch, you might begin with a shocking head-on portrait, then a mating shot or egg-laying picture, a hitch-hiking emperor shrimp, a wider shot displaying a diver trying on the slug, and a close-up element of rhinophore or the color sample.
Reportage of a dive would possibly begin with a cut up of divers leaping in, then the reef with the boat above, divers encountering marine life, and a few close-ups of marine life, and end with divers hanging onto a security cease.
Brainstorm concepts earlier than you dive. {A magazine} designer received’t use two related photographs in a function, so differ your type and strategy. Shoot horizontals and verticals, macros and wide-angles, silhouettes and powerful colors, basic and inventive strategies.
That mentioned, your photographs nonetheless have to be coherent, which is why prime magazines sometimes get one photographer to shoot a narrative slightly than purchase stylistically unconnected photographs from inventory.
It’s best to goal to supply greater than twice the variety of completed photographs you want after which scale back them all the way down to the very best 5 for the story.
Keep in mind, you aren’t choosing for social media or contests, so choose the photographs that advance the narrative, even when they don’t seem to be your favorite standalone photographs.
TIPS
- Choose up journal and look by means of the large options and analyse the pictures when it comes to content material and technical selection. Take into consideration what lenses have been used and the way compositions advance the story.
- Photojournalism isn’t about producing 5 contest winners, however 5 photographs that absolutely discover and illustrate the subject.
52 Assignments: Underwater Pictures by Alex Mustard, Ammonite Press, RRP £12.99, is obtainable on-line and from all good bookshops. Contact [email protected] if ordering from outdoors the UK.
As a particular provide for DIVE readers, you should buy 52 Assignments: Underwater Pictures from Items to Me for less than £10.40 (+P&P)! Standard RRP £12.99. Go to giftstome.co.uk and use the provide code R5703. Provide ends 18 December 2024 (UK orders solely).
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