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 … Read more

RESCUED!

Steve Gerrard stirred his coffee slowly as a lazy Sunday morning in 1991 began at Spring Systems Dive Center in Luraville, Florida: “cave country” for those in the know. He still had some time to kill before his cave diving class would begin and he turned the pages of the Sunday paper with growing boredom. … Read more

Can You Trust Your Instructor?

British dry wit Comedian Jimmy Carr claims to have put a classified-ad in a newspaper that read along the lines of, “Good looking, young, millionaire seeks gullible stunner.” We can  all be gullible at times, especially when undergoing training with a trusted instructor, but how well can you trust your instructor? I still remember a … Read more

Dive Guides From Hell

I’m lucky.  Most of the dive guides at the operations we frequent are knowledgeable, helpful, skilled divers who spoil us silly.  They love showing us critters (but enough with the pygmy seahorses already!), and understand the currents and other idiosyncrasies of the dive sites. But a few weeks ago we had to dive with a character … Read more