419 Dive Log Australasia AUGUST 2026

Comments: The most important feature of your Underwater Journey is to reward yourself. Give your self some positive comments about your own photo. Then, enjoy your own work. It’s not about winning a competition or showing off; it is more about developing your own style and enjoying your journey. Taking pleasure and satisfaction in your acheivements is paramount. In this photo, I am enfatuated with the resting fish. Many humans love a mid day siesta and fish are no different.

Never criticise another U/W photographer to their face. Their photos are very personal. A carelss word or a crass comment is just plain bad manners and is the absolutley worst way to treat friends or the best way to lose friends. Do not do it! Period. Basic diving skills I have taught two hundred scuba courses, most went for five days and dive instruction was thorough and OWD divers were properly trained and confident. I see too many Divers with poor diving skills, which are a major hazard to underwater photographers, marine life and themselves. Whenever, I teach a specialty course such as U/W photo or Marine Biology, I always refresh skills of those certified divers and they always appreciate the buoyancy refresher practice. The reason being that at least thirty per cent of divers still have woeful buoyancy control and kick the living daylights out of marine life some / most of the time. I always stressed to dive students that they must equalise their ears three times in the first metre, especially in the first one foot. Most divers I see with ear troubles start popping their ears when the discomfort turns to pain at one to two metres. By then, it is too late.

All divers say that they appreciate the free refresher. Then, at the start of the dive, I remind them how to do a controlled descent with one hand on your ears and the other on the power inflator button for the controlled descent. That is, a little puff of air every metre or two on descent to control your free fall. Once on the bottom, I make them do fin pivoting for 30 sec, take ten deep slow breaths and then hover cross legged mid water at least once. Few divers practice these basic skills often enough. The curious thing about divers with bad buoyancy is that they are totally oblivious to how bad they are. I have tried to help them, mainly to prevent them from ruining my dive. Their first response is to get very angry at you. Most refuse to take advice and continue to ignore my advice and to foul up the dive. On the rare occassions when I have had more than I can bear, I tell them, “Every now and again, look behind yourself as you are finning and see the clouds of dust”. Still, most of these divers will not accept that their skills are rubbish and reach for their dive knife or any other suitable weapon so it is time to retreat. That is human nature at its best! Good photographers take care of marine life and have good diving habits.

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DIVE LOG Australasia #417 - April ‘26

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