Wide-angle underwater scenic shots often benefit from having a diver in the photo. A diver helps to fill in the empty water in the background, adds depth to the photo, and adds size perspective.
And since Scuba divers need to dive with a buddy, a diver is an easy subject to work with. Or at least it can be easy with a few simple tips.
Talk with your buddy in advance. Most buddies do not mind posing for a photo or two, but they rarely want to devote their entire dive to staring into your camera.
Plan the pose and the signals. Signal them with one direction at a time. Show them your further (or closer sign), then higher (or lower) then to the left (or right). Show them your little bit signal for small adjustments. It may take several moves but they will understand each move and you will end up with your great photo.
Before you leave for your dive, describe what a good diver should look like in a photo.
You may even gather a few examples from print or the internet that show what you would like to have. Rather than having their arms and legs all cater-wampus like a constipated spider, ask them to keep their arms mostly to their sides, or holding their gauge or camera, and have their legs in a normal kicking motion rather than stiff with their fins at a right angle to their legs.
If they swim slowly and normally, they will look terrific. It is very difficult to pose without moving.
Use a wide-angle lens and get close to things that are colourful and interesting. Use your background diver to add interest. Be careful not to put them in the centre of the photo as they are not colourful enough to take over from your lovely scene.
They are meant to add depth into the background, but not to be the centre of attention. Aim the strobe at the foreground which is your primary subject.
If your buddy’s portrait is your main subject, then you want them close enough to get good colour and detail of their face and eyes. Use the widest lens that you have and signal to them to get closer. Find something pretty that they can get close to without hurting the reef.
A fan growing out from the wall, or some yellow tube sponges on the top of a coral head add to the photo. Show them a dead place where they can steady themselves with a few fingers and tell them to let go just before you take the photo. You do not want people to think that they are hurting the reef when you both know that they are touching only a bare spot or a place covered with algae.
Set your exposure for the ambient light of the background because you will rarely want a diver shown suspended in darkness.
Use your manual camera settings to adjust for the blue. In the Cayman Islands, on a sunny day, at average depth, a level camera angle with ISO 200 would expose around f8 at 1/100th with the strobe around two feet away.
Program mode on a digital camera will likely overexpose your diver, so set your EV control (the one marked with a +/-) for a -1 or -2.
If you truly want a portrait of a particular person, it is best if they are looking into the camera lens. It they are just a diver playing the role of an anonymous subject in the photo with other subjects, then they should be looking at the other subjects and should definitely NOT look into the camera lens.
In this case, the direction of their gaze should lead the viewer to the other half of the photo. So if your diver is near a beautiful sponge or interesting fish, he/she should be looking at the sponge or fish.
If the diver is looking into the lens, their direct gaze stops the viewer attention and holds it, just as a movie star on a magazine cover is always photographed looking into the camera lens. When you see it on the newsstand, it catches your attention and holds it.
There are many more tips and tricks to photographing divers, but this should give you a great start. More often than not, you will have no time to prepare at all, you will simply have a turtle swimming along, and there is someone behind it and you will shoot no matter what the diver is doing.
And, more often than not, your photo will be fun to look at and everyone will want to see it. So don’t worry if you can’t plan all of this ahead of time. Just make sure that you have fun and never criticise your dive buddy. Posing is very difficult as they are neither mind readers, nor can they see themselves from your point of view.
Have fun, and bring back lots of photos. If you need a class to practice these tips, call me at 949-7415 and I will be glad to schedule time for just you and me to go out and shoot.