Heavy Metal

Alex Mustard · Issue 59, Mar/Apr 2011 · pp. 55–59

Products mentioned: Magic Filter, Nikon D90, Nikon D700, Nikon D300, Subtronic Alpha Pro, 10-17mm lens, 16mm lens

My background is as a marine biologist, so you might be surprised to hear that I am a lover of wreck photography. In my early days, I viewed wreck dives as simply another location to shoot marine life. The hard surfaces were always great places to find egg laying spawners! But down the years I have learned to appreciate the diverse challenges and opportunities that metal offers for underwater photography. I really feel that photographers who shun wrecks deprive themselves not only of wreck images for their portfolios, but also some of the most valuable lessons in controlling light underwater. Few subjects teach us as much about underwater light as wrecks: their size and immobility mean that we have to read and wait for ambient light to shoot different features of a wreck and to produce images with different atmospheres, whether in colour or black and white. You can never take all the sho…