Lesson 2 – my inspiration

[MichaelS]

Hello,

To be honest my personal way to photography started with scuba diving. I made some photos approx. 20 years ago (with a SLR camera) but somehow lost the interest and spend many years just taking some quick shots when being on vacation. Sometimes I even got the feeling that it would be better to remember without picture and did not take any shot at all. Some years after becoming a diver I started with underwater photography (digital compact camera then) and tried to improve every time.

One a my favourite photographs is Marc Casanovas from Barcelona, known as he won the Catalan underwater photography contest 4 times (by now), was many time in the Spanish top 5 and is internationally known in his area. I attach some of his photos (taken from his website). His work is the reason why I now changed to a DSLR and started this course (and my general interest in photography as well). Marc is specialized in underwater photography and therefore adjusts his equipment to this. As this is a niche in photography in general I believe that the top photographers in this area are not known to many people outside the diving scene.

From my point of view Marc combines nature shots with photographic art, his pictures always seem to look interesting, colourful and mysterious. In addition I like very much his addiction as he is very ambitious regarding the contests and his own work.

To understand his commitment we need to know that he does some specific work to achieve these results. First (as he works also for magazines) sometimes a photo a determined fish/plan/nudibranch, etc. is required. To get it he needs to plan his dives and look out for it. Taking the photo might take several days and sometimes he just cannot make it. In addition to get the perfect shot he needs to remain in his position and wait for it, always being underwater. Second, on the type of contests he is successful in the jury requests the camera’s memory card right when being on surface again. This means that there is no chance to do any enhancements on the pictures, not even the most basic ones. This on the other hand required quit good knowledge in photography, too.

I do not want to get to this level but it helped me to understand that it is not just the technical level of the camera but the holder’s patience and knowledge which makes the difference. This is the reason why I know started to try to be as good as I can and after having started to understand better the functionalities and options of a digital camera I am getting more and more interested in ‘none underwater photography’.

Reading lesson 2 I acknowledge that there is still a lot to learn about the masters and it helps me to get a better feeling about photography. To be honest I have never heard any name before starting this course but I definitely will learn more about some of them.

Despite of the photographic work of the masters I find it very interesting to know about their motivation and effort.

Thank you! 🙄
Michael

[Duncan Rawlinson]

Hi Michael,

Thanks for submitting your piece.

I’m glad that you have a very good understanding of what interests you in photography and where you want to go. I hope this assignment made your ideas clearer and really got you thinking about photography.

Here are some inspirational underwater photos:

Toni Frissell: Weeki Wachee spring, Florida, 1947 by trialsanderrors, on Flickr

Deep Blue Dolphin Love by LaPrimaDonna, on Flickr

Hello There by josh-n, on Flickr

More here:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=underwater&s=int&l=4&ss=2

Do you want to learn more about underwater photography specifically?

I look forward to seeing your next assignment!

[Author]

Posts