How do I get started?

Ollie Clarke · Issue 142, Jan/Feb 2025 · pp. 70–75

Products mentioned: GoPro 3+ Silver, Sealife Micro, Canon G16, Fantasea housing, Sealife 1500 lumen video light, Sea & Sea YS-D2, Sony A7Riii, Nauticam housing, Olympus TG-6/7, Canon G7X series, Sony RX100 series, Sony A1, WACP-1

The two questions I get asked most frequently are ‘do you have any advice for people starting out in underwater photography?’ And ‘how did you get to where you are today?’ So in this article I thought I’d share some insights on both of these questions with a bit of my journey in photography and some tips along the way. The Hawksbill shot (right) is one of the first photos I took underwater, at least that I have access too. The first was with a disposable camera on a family holiday to Florida when I was about 11, although those priceless shots have probably been disposed of… Anyway, this photo is probably when I thought to myself ‘this whole underwater photography thing is pretty cool’. I took it during my Divemaster course in Vanuatu, with a GoPro 3+ Silver and it isn’t really in focus, it’s badly composed and I lost my red filter during dive one so all the colour’s are blue. This is whe…