Responsible underwater photography

In short

Underwater photography lets you keep a record of your dives, share what you have seen and identify species. It first requires good buoyancy control: a photographer who cannot control their buoyancy damages the seabed and takes risks. A few rules are enough to take pictures without disturbing marine life, without forgetting your own and your team's safety, and to get sharp, colourful images. Finally, a photo of a diver is shared only with their consent.

Why it matters

Popular sites often bear the marks of photographers: broken gorgonians, stirred-up silt, disturbed animals. Underwater, the camera also absorbs your attention: you forget your gauge, your depth or your buddy. Responsible practice protects the environment, the team and the photographer, and gives better photos.

Respecting the environment

• Stabilise before you shoot: good weighting and a horizontal position keep you off the bottom. If you must lean on something, choose a spot of bare rock, with one fingertip.
• Do not touch or move marine life: do not turn an animal over, pull it out of its shelter or push it for a better angle.
• Be careful with strobes and lights: some animals are sensitive to light (nocturnal species, seahorses). Limit the number of shots of the same subject and move away if it shows signs of stress.
• Do not stir up silt: fin gently, high off the bottom, and watch your fins near the seabed.
• Respect local regulations: reserves, no-go zones, protected species.

Not forgetting safety

• Check depth, time and air more often than usual: photography makes you lose track of time.
• Stay with your team: tell your buddy when you stop and do not go down alone for a subject.
• Keep your hands free: attach the camera with a short lanyard, without blocking access to your equipment.
• Start simple: a compact camera before a large housing with several strobes, and no photography during training dives or when discovering a demanding site.

The basics of underwater photography

• Get closer: water absorbs light and scatters particles. The less water between the lens and the subject, the sharper and more colourful the image.
• Light and colour: red disappears within the first few metres, then orange and yellow. At depth, everything turns blue or green.
• White balance: a manual setting or an "underwater" mode partly corrects the blue cast, in shallow water and with natural light.
• Lighting: a strobe or video light brings colours back. Move it away from the lens axis to avoid lighting up particles in front of the subject.
• Composition: shoot at the subject's level or slightly below, upwards, rather than from above.

Photos useful for identification

The app can automatically identify fish in photos added to a session. For a photo to be usable:

• the fish fills a good part of the frame and is not cut off;
• it is seen from the side, fins visible if possible;
• the photo is sharp, without motion blur;
• colours are rendered by a strobe or light, or corrected;
• one main subject per photo, as far as possible.

Add your photos to the dive's session: they are linked to its place and date. You can confirm or correct the identification suggestions, which remain suggestions. A species misidentified by the app must never encourage you to touch an animal.

Sharing and privacy

• Photo location: photos from a phone or a recent camera often contain the GPS position in their metadata. Before sharing a session or a photo, check what you make visible; some fragile sites are better kept discreet.
• Sharing in the app: you choose who to share a session with (your clubs, or publicly). A photo proposed to illustrate the practical guides is copied without its metadata, with your consent.
• Image rights: a recognisable person in a photo must have agreed before the photo is published. Ask your buddies, and blur or leave out photos where other divers are identifiable without their consent.

Key takeaways

• Stabilise before taking pictures; do not touch or move marine life.
• Watch depth, time, air and your buddy: photography absorbs your attention.
• Get closer and add light for sharp, colourful photos.
• For identification: fish from the side, sharp, well framed.
• Do not publish a recognisable person without their consent.

Further reading

The environment guide recalls good behaviour on dive sites; the weighting guide helps you gain the stability a photographer needs; the guide on hazardous species presents the animals to photograph from a distance.