Focus

Focus. Composition. Subject. Exposure. Take the picture. Edit.

It’s not a picture I would say to myself at any point along the way. I pressed the shutter plenty of times – wrongly.

And… sometimes I was close. I never said I was perfect. You see my posts and they are all good pics? Of course not! Maybe you like it? Maybe not.

I lose focus of my(self) and within my own posts. Why am I here? Ego? Education? Humor? Observation? Insight? Entertainment? Oh boy!?

Well, thanks for being here. Send money… hey hey. Kidding. It’s because Colleen encourages me to keep writing. Everyone needs a muse. She has not seen all of my pictures. Unlike Carol she has not grown overwhelmed with fish pictures. I do tend to overdo things sometimes.

Underwater you are in a 3D environment – technically 6D – you are moving, and, the subject is moving. That is a lot to keep track of. And to get a proper exposure in focus? Gee?! I’m lucky. It’s easier than dancing and chewing gum.

Transformative

Can a single image make a difference?

When I saw this image in Lightroom after my download, my eyes widened and I was transformed. Heretofore, the images I had taken were washed out green color cast from the loss of red as you go deeper in the sea.

And here! This was color! Red coral?! Ah! The Red Sea? I was mesmerized! I took this?! This is what’s under the sea? Wow! I had no previous exposure to underwater photography except to fry a Nikon point and shoot on a dive many years before. Sea water does not do well with digital electronics.

Here! Look! Wow! Am I over the top enthusiastic? Do you see the color?! Colors! Thereafter I was a flash photographer and my colors were solid though never as eye opening as this image that started me on the path. Flash!

Hereafter, I shot flash. And got color!

Fishies

I made a mistake and made the same post for two days. A replacement was needed. Oh boy! What to pick? Random scroll? Aha! It’s usually fish, flowers, or cats. Ha!

Under the sea…. I confront the fishies. They look at me. I look at them. Fish do not have eyelids. No closed eyes. We stare at each other. It’s the Red Sea. Red? Coral! The sea is not itself red. Why are the fish so colorful? Easy to spot, catch, and eat? Underwater, without flash, color is lost as the depth increases. So, why the color? I do not know. But is sure pops (color) when you punch that flash! Fishies!

Discovery

Voila! Hooked! Not in the fishing sense… ha ha. When I first dived, I about immediately fried a camera as water damaged a waterproof camera fatally. Yeah, neat trick. Diving in the Red Sea, first I had to learn the basics of scuba diving. After that I had a dinky waterproof housing for my Canon G12. I used the flash on the reef with a lion fish. Voila!!! Oh my! Color!! The richness of color of the fish and the coral was an instant narcotic. I was hooked! I got better and better. And then I left the Middle East and have not dived since. Oh well.

Flash! It is the key element to taking out the poor color underwater. Light drops off as you dive deeper. And red is gone very quickly. Flash. It is the only thing to save you. Batteries! You need a lot of power to sustain you. I shoot a lot. After all it is digital.