Transcript
Dive Life
The Shooter
Specialty of the Month: Digital Underwater Photographer By Brooke Morton
James D. Watt/Seapics.com
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t was at Heineken Wall in the Bahamas, just days after completing his Open Water certification and one dive away from earning the PADI Digital Underwater Photographer Specialty course, that 12-year-old Kevin Recor confronted his biggest challenge to date — an unexpected shadowy silhouette entering his camera’s frame. He wavered: Should he pursue the subject or trust his instinct? Kevin first toted an underwater camera — a digital point-and-shoot — on his final Open Water dive at PADI Gold Palm IDC Stuart Cove’s Dive Bahamas in
Nassau. PADI Divemaster Chang Sien Chin noticed and offered him an upgrade: a Sea&Sea DX8000 rental camera from the dive shop’s Fin Photo center. The course had been Kevin’s idea. His father, Jeff Recor, who took it with him, said Kevin had never expressed interest in photography until “he learned that he could take pictures of fish; then he lit up.” The course’s few hours of classroom instruction cover photography basics — such as composition, exposure, white balance, file formats and downloading of images — plus gear know-how like greasing and
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inserting O-rings for a watertight housing. Next, the course progresses to skills like buoyancy control, monitoring depth and air, and strong buddy contact. PADI Digital Underwater Photographer Specialty Instructor Andrea Lee also taught them to mentally compose their shots, with consideration to subject positioning, angle and negative space — the use of open water around the subject. During the three dives necessary to complete the specialty, Jeff, a topside shooter for more than 30 years, found that his challenge was separating which problems he’d have to fix and which ones the camera could automatically correct. Kevin’s largest obstacle was breathing control, and therefore buoyancy. He also realized that approaching the subject too quickly would stir up sand, appearing as backscatter in the shot. During the first two dives, their subjects had been mostly small critters, like shrimp, arrow crabs, eels and nudibranchs. Then came the dive at Heineken Wall. Heineken is sandwiched between a 6,000-foot drop-off and the sandy arena where Stuart Cove’s conducts daily shark dives. So when a brawny, full-grown reef shark came slowly cruising past, it wasn’t a surprise — to the instructors. But for Kevin, all those glistening teeth made his eyes widen. It was his first shark encounter, and he did what most 12-yearolds would do — he beat fins for the boat. Chang noticed and monitored his ascent. But the lessons must have helped because, mid-beeline, Kevin turned, lifted the camera and fired off a single shot. The image is his best so far. And while that killer shot has made the course worthwhile, Jeff says the real value is that Kevin now has a medium “to communicate his love of what he does with other people.” And next time, he’ll probably spend just a little more time with the shark. Diver captures a 14-foot tiger shark, Little Bahama Bank, Bahamas. padi.com april 2008 25
