Tag Archive
Unfulfilled Expectations: Whose Fault?
We recently hosted a dive trip where most of the guests departed the boat extremely unhappy. This is very unusual, and very regrettable to us. It did make me think, however, about why this happened and if any of our customers' dissatisfaction could have been prevented. No doubt the boat's mechanical problems were the major factor. But, the guests were able to dive every day, just not every place they thought they might go. The mechanical problems also made one of the most expensive cabins uninhabitable. The guests assigned to that cabin were greatly inconvenienced, but they preferred to sleep in the salon rather than exchanging rooms with us. These folks certainly did not get good value for their money. We have been around this business for a long time and know that boats are boats, and if they can break down, they usually will. Stuff happens, even with the best of intentions and maintenance. Together with the company, we are going to come up with realistic compensation for everyone. What I don't really get was the progressively worsening attitude of some guests as the trip proceeded. They were on the boat for the duration. They were diving in a remote and exotic location. They were seeing animals that they had never seen before. They had also paid a lot of money for the trip. Why couldn't they make the best of it and enjoy what they were experiencing instead of constantly looking for more reasons to be angry? With a few weeks of hindsight, I think the power of unfulfilled expectations caused most of their discontent. These people had not really done their homework on the area. They expected to dive in consistently clear water in a place not known for great visibility, they wanted drift dives, but refused to dive... More »
PhotoStop: What Underwater Photography Should Be About
"That's a wonderful picture, you must be an expert at Photoshop". Is that the ultimate insult to a photographer? It is to me. I like to think of myself as an underwater photographer. My perfect dive would be to descend, absorb the site's ambiance, discover the definitive subject, visualize the image I want, take one perfect photograph, and ascend, breathing the last puff of Nitrox from my tank as I reach for the dive boat ladder. I believe that a photo that comes straight out of the camera (preferably on film) is superior to one that has been photoshopped. Not only visually superior, morally superior! So when a photo of violinist and underwater model Leigh Paine, that I had successfully shot to promote a future concert, was published on page 3 of The Cairns Post, I was elated. It looked great; half a page in full colour. But the comments that greeted me praised my prowess at Photoshop, not photography. They thought I had faked it. I was mortified. I own a camera; I do not own Photoshop. I do not digitally remove backscatter; I strive to shoot pictures without backscatter. I do not care that "to photoshop" is now a recognised verb. I use technique and skill with my camera whenever I shoot pictures. That has to be worthier. Unfortunately I can find no philosophical rationale to defend my conviction. Let me explain. If you have studied modern art, you may know of French painter René Magritte. In 1929 he completed a painting called "The Treachery of Images". The painting was of a smoker's pipe and on the painting he wrote, under the pipe, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe." Which translates to, "This is not a pipe." He was making the point that images should not be confused with reality. An image is an image and... More »
The Problem With Younger Divers
Take a good look at yourself before you critique any "old fart". While at the DEMA diving trade show awhile back, I met an old French diver who lived in Bonaire. He was exhibiting some paintings he had made of various wrecks around that Caribbean island. They were beautifully contrived scenes, but I didn't recognize any of them. When I questioned him where they were, it became clear they were all well beyond 150 feet deep. I asked him if he used Trimix for these dives, to which he replied, "I use air and I have been diving for 50 years!" Today's technical divers would be appalled. Some time later, I was sent to the London Aquarium to photograph Ron and Valerie Taylor, who were going to dive in its shark tank. I wanted to go in with them, holding my camera, but the aquarium's chief diver strictly forbade it. "I've got enough on my hands looking after these old people," he told me. Then he proceeded to enter the water and smack on the nose any little shark that dared to come near the woman who had been made famous for enticing fully-grown sharks to bite her arm for the benefit of a camera. I watched equally bemused when on a liveaboard with iconic diver Stan Waterman, cameraman from the acclaimed documentary Blue Water White Death. He is now in his 80s and looking a little frail, but he is as fit as a butcher's dog and has spent more time underwater than some of us have been alive. This doesn't stop younger divers from giving him advice. He's always very polite and listens patiently before offering a cheery, "Good for you!" In the water, Stan is the consummate diver. He should be, as they say practice makes perfect. Take away the... More »
PaparaSea
My model was in tears. She had surfaced full of joy after her first ever dive with manta rays but back on the boat a couple of underwater photographers had growled at her. "You are a manta-chaser! Stay on the bottom next time!" Her joy turned into remorse. It was my fault. I should have made it clear that we were going to hang around on the bottom and let the mantas come to us. I had taught Leigh how to position herself with Potato Cod, turtles, sea jellies and schools of jacks to get close and dramatic interactions, but failed to emphasise that with wild mantas in the Western Pacific it is best to stay still and let the mantas come to you. We were diving Manchurian Pass at Eastern Fields in PNG's Coral Sea from adventurer Craig de Wit's famous dive boat Golden Dawn. Mantas are regularly seen on the outside of the pass where they swim along a narrow ridge at 20 m. A sandy lagoon runs one side of the ridge, and a deep wall along the other. We were diving, parallel to each other, either side of the top of the ridge and I imagined that if we encountered a manta I would be able to shoot the manta passing between us, and get Leigh and the manta in the same shot. Caught up in the action, I did not see Craig signalling divers to stay low. Being an Old Salt I have developed my own unique set of "Rules For Diving" that have helped me survive and prosper underwater. "Never Dive Deeper Than Your IQ (Imperial units)" is a favourite, though I do add 10 ft. depth for every 1000 dives experienced. "Treat Every Dive As A Decompression Dive" is another, and, especially in the early days when... More »
The Ugly Side of Underwater Photography
Notes From the Back of Beyond II We took a busman's holiday last weekend and went diving on Bali's north coast. It's easy diving around Tulamben; porters carry the tanks and you just walk off the beach. Great schools of trevally surround the Liberty Wreck and the black sand slope to the east is a famed critter diving mecca. It should have been a beautiful morning dive, but what we saw underwater shifted our moods a full 180 degrees. We finished the dive almost ashamed to call ourselves underwater photographers. About 50 feet down the slope, hovering close to the substrate, we spent about 15 minutes searching for unusual species of nudibranchs. We weren't the only ones in the water-Tulumben is a popular dive area-and another group of divers was nearby. From the amount of silt that drifted our way we figured they had found an interesting subject so we finned over to take a closer look. There were about ten of them, armed with all manner of image-capturing gear, and they had surrounded a Wonderpus photogenicus, one of the recently described long-armed octopuses that is often confused with the Mimic Octopus. A few divers had still camera housings mounted on video housings, a few had both wide angle and macro rigs cobbled together with a tangled web of multiple strobe cords. One diver caught our attention; she had a small video housing and had settled down gently on the bottom, waiting patiently, and so we decided to hang around to see what happened. For more than 30 minutes we witnessed one of the lousiest displays of buoyancy skills we have ever seen outside of an entry level class. You would have thought that the current was running at four knots, there was that much sand blowing through the water. The lone divemaster vainly tried... More »
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