Best behaviour

Staff · Issue 17, Feb/Mar 2004 · pp. 44–48

Products mentioned: Nikon F100, Nikon D100, 17-35mm lens, 28-70mm lens, 60mm lens, 105mm lens, Subtronic Alpha strobe, Sea and Sea YS120, Sea and Sea YS30, Nikon SB80DX, Velvia film

44 Many of us get into this game because we want a record of the marine life that we see during our dives. As beginners our goal is sharp, correctly exposed images; we judge our work a success when our images look like the ones we see in books and magazines. After a while, though, just reproducing what others have done before doesn't satisfy. We want our images to stand out from the crowd, have our stamp on them, be original. And this can be pretty tricky with coral reef subjects because almost every photogenic species has been photographed from just about every conceivable angle. So how can we take original wildlife shots? A popular trend over the last 5- 10 years has been to seek out the most diverse coral reefs, usually in SE Asia, and photograph species that few have seen before. Back in 1997 Greek photographer Constantinos Petrinos entered the Antibes Festival with a photograph of a…