Blog: Self-Modeling in Grand Cayman
By Joseph Tepper
Fufilling a New Year’s resolution can come a million ways—going to the gym more often, cutting out unsustainable fish from your diet or even trying to take more pictures on vacation (not a problem for most of us!). Sometimes, all it takes is staring into the dome of your camera as you float 15 feet above a coral reef in the Caribbean.
Going to Grand Cayman for a month this winter, my resolution for the year was to take my photography to new creative levels. As a single diver and wide-angle lover, the first thing that came to mind was an article written by Keri Wilk on self-modeling. Ever since I first read his article, I had been itching to grab a tripod, some spare weights, and put myself on the underwater catwalk.
Modeling for myself was not the most efficient system. On each dive I was lucky to get a series of three subject sequences between finding the settings, adjusting composition and lighting, and swimming up and down and up and down to model; but it was rewarding.
There’s nothing like meticulously planning through a shot and executing it without having the confusion of signing to and positioning a model.
I also experimented with using snoots in a wide-angle setting. Traditionally, underwater photographers have used snoots to isolate macro subjects or wide-angle subjects from a cluttered background, so I thought it would be an interesting way of separating colorful coral from a slightly less exciting reef.
Only a few weeks into the New Year and I had already completed one resolution!
