Craft

Build stronger underwater images

Practical technique from thirty years of getting it wrong first. Free, no gate, and no course funnel at the end of it.

A small subject lit from the side against black water, the background gone dark
Light

Strobe positioning for cleaner light

Better placement matters more than bigger strobes. Angle, spread, separation, and when to choose side light over front.

A table coral shot into the sun, strobes filling the reef beneath it
Composition

Underwater composition that holds attention

Less about formula, more about presence, distance and control. Start by deciding what the frame is actually about.

A circular fisheye frame — the whole image circle inside a black corner
Gear

Every camera I have taken underwater

Nine systems, from a Nikonos on the boats in 1997 to an R5 Mark II. What each one taught me about weight, batteries, buoyancy and the order you buy in.

A macro subject rendered at high magnification against dark water
Gear

What resolution costs you underwater

Fifty megapixels in Lembeh. Diffraction arrived at f/11 instead of f/25, and every high-resolution body since has made the same trade.

A tiny subject on a whip coral, framed without contact
Technique

Working a subject without wrecking the site

Buoyancy, finning and patience. The difference between a photographer a guide wants back and one they do not.

A school turning past the reef — the kind of pass you shoot a hundred frames of
Workflow

Culling honestly

The hardest edit is your own. How to judge a frame when you still remember the dive.

A drysuited diver under the kelp canopy in cold green water
Cold water

Shooting in a drysuit

Gloves, buoyancy, condensation, and the things that stop working below ten degrees.

Why these are free

Because the trips are the product

There is no course, no membership and no upsell at the bottom of these. The business here is small-group trips and prints, and a photographer who has read the strobe piece is a better person to have on a boat.

If something here is wrong or out of date, tell me. It is a thirty-year-old opinion in places and the gear has moved.

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Prototype — not live