1 For my birthday, my brother and sister in-laws bought me a 4 hour underwater photo course at Cathy Church's photography center located at the Sunset House. In…
2 First was 2 hours of classroom review, going over areas of lighting and exposure control that I wanted to concentrate on.
3 The resort and dive operation is located on ironshore. Diving is on the shallow reef that's just a giant stride in and ladders to climb back out.
4 The Sunset House reef and dive boats
5 My Bar at Sunset House is quite the hangout for divers and happy hour for the bankers since it is close to downtown Georgetown
6 This Spinyhead Blenny poking it's head out of a coral head was so small (less than 1 cm) that I could barely make it out with my old eyes. It took lots of…
7 We worked on modifying exposure control and strobe positioning to darken the ambient light (blue water background) and increase the contribution of the strobes…
8 Positioning strobes to the sides to create more texture on the surfaces of the yellow tube sponges than is possible by lighting straight-on. Also, it greatly…
9 Lighting the squirrelfish from behind to illuminate the fins and add interest. I must say, also quite a challenge to get the eyes as the focus point for the…
10 Slightly different strobe positioning, lighting from the side and behind highlights the translucence of the squirrelfish's body and especially the mouth.
11 Lighting a rather ordinary coral head from below, with the sun in the background, adds interest and drama.
12 Macro closeup of Christmas Tree Worms with lighting from the side and behind really lights them up.
13 Same Christmas Tree Worms, same lighting from behind, this time from farther away to get the rope sponges and the sun highlights in the photo to add drama.
14 Closeup of a Flamingo Tongue Snail on a gorgonian. The challenge here was to get the focus on the right element while things are waving in the current.
15 At the end of the day, I walked away with improved skills, some great photos, and a tacky certificate
