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Shooting good underwater photos and videos is always challenging. In this episode of The Complete Guide, Dubai-based photographer Andrii Pletiuk shares 5 simple tips which will help you shoot better content and develop your skills in no time.
I migrated to underwater photography from the fashion industry, and that's why I prefer to shoot people. But still, you can use all these tips in every condition, from shooting people to sea creatures. Please, also, don't forget about safety, never dive alone, find the right buddy for you during the photoshoot, no matter for how long or how deep you are going. Finally, check your gear before going into the water as the last thing that you want to deal with is an empty battery or full memory card.
For underwater photography, it is always better to use a wide angle or even fish eye lens, because you can come closer to your subject. You want to come as close as possible and keep this distance between your model and your camera during the framing. It will give us crispier, cleaner and more saturated images because in the water there are a lot of small particles, plankton, and the less water we have between our lens and the model, the crispier and nicer your image it will be.
During the swim look around, spend a couple of seconds to find the best angles, and then start shooting. Just remember, if you dive in from this side it doesn't mean you need to take pictures from this side. Just move around, find the best spot and then take a picture. If you need a back shot you need to dive from the back side, if you wanna a front shot you need to take pictures from the front. But still, if you're going from the side, just spend a couple of seconds swimming toward the model and then take a picture. I prefer portraits, so mostly all pictures I'm shooting in front of the model.
Tip number three is eye contact. Yes we wanna come closer, we wanna face our subject, but what we really want is to get a connection between you and your model. It helps only with eye contact. When we have eye contact we feel more connected, it becomes more personal for us. It's easy to show the emotions, expressions, and mood of the model.
As I mentioned before you need to stay close enough to get this nice and clear and crispy image, to face your subject, to show the eyes of your subject, but at the same time don't forget to leave some space around your model. It's underwater photography, we need to show it's underwater. If it's a reef, we need to show that reef, if there is a wreck, we need to show the wreck, if there is a fish around your model you also need to show it. Also, if your model is moving just keep some space on that side where she's moving, so it will be more pleasant and more understandable for viewers to get what's going on in that picture.
The last tip is to always check your images. Take a couple of extra seconds during recovery breathing to check your images, check your framing, check your exposure, and check if your model is looking at you. It's always easy to take a couple of more shots rather than coming back home to realize you don't have any images good enough to be published. That's it for today, I hope this information is useful for you, thank you Alchemy for sponsoring this video tutorial and hope to see you again.