Human beings
are big animals,
of course, but for
a long time
RICHARD
ASPINALLconsidered other
divers more of a nuisance than
a photo-opportunity. 'I was
wrong!' he admits nowdivEr 38
I
’VE HAD TO LEARNa number of
lessons over the years: from the
technical aspects of photography in
a medium that’s not entirely friendly to
complicated electronics, to the less
immediately obvious, such as predicting
the behaviour of a school of fish, or
judging just when a shark will change
direction and disappear into the blue.
Capturing the right shot sometimes
comes down to being in the right place at
the right time and doing the right thing
with the camera.
While this might pass for a superficial
definition of what makes an adequate
photographer, taking a series of usable
underwater images requires a little more.
I realised that my wildlife and reef shots
were fine, but that I needed to put people
in the frame.
Commercial underwater photography
is a business, after all. Magazines want to
shift copies or drive online traffic.
Everyone from liveaboard operators to
tourist boards want to attract income
and might require a suite of images to
use on social media, brochures or to
accompany press releases. Images likely
to get the most use are those that say to
the audience: “This could be you!”
It took me some time to learn this