As a part of Alex Mustard's Northern tour(!) we went to Northumberland to dive on the Farne Islands. This island chain is well known for it's playful seals and we went with the express intention of trying to photograph them. We joined Paul Walker's excellent rib and spent an amazing hour and a half playing, interacting and photographing these wonderful creatures. The first dive was characterised by seals biting and tugging on our fins, biting my dome port shade and strobes and generally showing how poor our buoyancy control and propulsion techniques are! Photographically, the conditions were perfect. Bright sunshine and shallow water, with relatively calm water made for some great scenic shots. I found getting the exposure correct challenging, the brightness of the surface was too great a contrast with the bottom. Camera angle relative to the sun, and framing are the key though!
This is a bit of a revelation! I guess I knew it all along, but had forgotten it! To be honest, I have been becoming a bit jaded with my underwater photography over the past couple of weeks, as many of my images seem to have become quite similar and predictable. Alex has just nudged me into how can shoot better and different images.
