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Text for this page is currently being finalised. Draft summary is shown below,
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David Faulks, from the Underwater Research Group (URG), gives us the lowdown on underwater photography. David is in his third year of being an URG member but his first 12 months of being involved in citizen science programs. He has recently done a 12 hour data collection dive at Ship Rock in Port Hacking. He has a personal view that what he shows people is from camera to audience without post processing too much. He might take 300 shots and publish five because they are the ones that truly reflect what he actually saw underwater. In this way he brings truth and fact to the discovery.
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| David’s camera rig.
Left: how the camera is generally stored.
Below: camera setup for underwater with extended arms. The storage box contains batteries, chargers; cables etc to support the camera. The camera has been taken out of the housing (RHS) to give some sort of perspective in relative sizes.
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Underwater photographers have to work out what style of photographic work they are going to do before they go into the water. Will it be close up work (macro) wide angle or photojournalistic work with wide panoramic shots? Once under water the photographer cannot change the position of anything except the flash units.
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| Underwater still photography is very different from that on land. As you go deeper everything turns blue-green, meaning you have to use a flash of some description. An underwater flash (or white light) is reasonably powerful but the light diminishes with distance.
Left: Minke Whale
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| The equipment weighs 3-5kg but a diver only feels about a quarter of that under water. There is nothing to push against under water so everything has to be positioned slowly. Some creatures react to flashes. Fish swim away very quickly but static ones, like crabs and octopus generally stay still. He has had an octopus reach out when positioning a camera in Chowder Bay.
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| Left: Blue Dragon Nudibranch.
Sometimes visibility may be very limited. However there are still many tiny creatures to observe and photograph. David recalls a 90 minute dive at Clifton Gardens when visibility was less than two metres. However, he saw Nudibranchs (little sea slugs), seahorses and various species of crabs. It was like going into your garden and seeing all the bugs feeding on your vegetable patch.
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Under the wharf at Clifton gardens is always different, with multiple octopus occupying every single nook and cranny and big stingray cruising around as well as moray eels. He also likes to visit Shelly Beach at Manly. Divers can go to the point around the ocean where there are large cuttlefish, blue groper and sometimes weedy sea dragons or they can go to the boardwalk side (Manly Concourse) and find all sorts of creatures amongst the seaweed.
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| Left: John Turnbull and David Faulks at Shelley Beach.
In Sydney the water temperature only varies about two degrees over the year so people can dive year round. The best underwater visibility is generally on a cold rainy day because the water is not influenced by any algae blooms on the surface area, making for clearer diving. He is, however, disappointed by the human detritus lying on the bottom of the harbour which inhibits the habitats that the underwater creatures live in.
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He has seen virtually a bird’s nest of fishing lines with sinkers, barbecue beads, newspapers, glass and plastic bottles, plastic cups and utensils and sunglasses. People on powerboats are horrified when divers come out of the water to say take your rubbish away, while handing it back to them! Part of URG’s mission is to keep our oceans (the world’s lungs) clean so the future may well contain photos of marine life with rubbish.
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| Weedy sea dragon
Dives are planned according to the site. Clifton Gardens, for instance, is a macro site, with a focus on small animals while Kurnell is more wide-angle photography. Sites like the HMAS Adelaide wreck at Terrigal Dive are also more panoramic. David is passionate about sharks and apex predators.
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He has been cage diving in South Australia on a cold winter’s day where a four metre Great white appeared out of the blue. He has also been to Guadalupe off the coast of Mexico with Great whites. They will come right up to the cage and look you in the eye as they cruise past. He has also seen Minke whales on the Great Barrier Reef. These whales are very sociable and will stop a couple of metres away, looking at divers inquisitively.
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| Left: Cuttlefish
David does not feel threatened when he is in the water, even from sharks. He states that most people are bitten during the golden hour just before sunset when sharks are the most active. Sharks take the blame for such attacks, an attitude by humans that does not extend to cars being blamed for road accidents.
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In 2018 he is furthering his dive qualifications so he can go into a decompression (technical diving) realm where he can stay under water a lot longer. At present as a recreational diver he can stay in the water column between 20-30m but as a technical diver he can go down to 45m. This will give him more scope to produce still photography in those waters. David Faulks was interviewed by Ruby Vincent for A Question of Balance. All images are by David Faulkes. Draft summary text (still to be finalised) is by Victor Barry, December 2017.
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