Don't treat your next dive as just another plonk - get more out of it by treating it as a work of art!It does the trick for celebrated underwater photographer Bob Halstead
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THE PERFECT DIVE
I AM LISTENING TO A CLARINET CONCERTO composed by Gerald Finzi. The third movement has an unashamedly joyful and romantic English melody floating around 20th century harmonies.
Without descending to art-speak gobbledygook, I can tell you that it is pretty well perfect, and it's hitting my emotion button.
Mr Finzi is giving me a message. That's what great art is supposed to do, to communicate emotions by one means or another.
How can I communicate my message of what it feels like to dive, and how wonderful and bizarre the underwater world is? Writing about it is tough. I bet you're as sick as I am of reading those stories where "beneath the sparkling canopy of the azure sea, myriads of exotic tropical fishes flash a kaleidoscope of rainbow colours..."
I'm sick of writing them, too. Perhaps if I were a poet I could do better, but I'm not, and unfortunately Walt Whitman never dived a coral reef.
Those of us whose emotions are stirred by music, literature, paintings, sculpture and architecture are indeed fortunate. Art, love and knowledge are, ultimately, what make life worth living.
I have loved art since I was a kid, and have spent hours studying art books and wandering around galleries. I'm sure this has helped me in my personal quest to shoot meaningful underwater photographs that I hope communicate the emotions I feel when I'm diving.
Getting a correctly focused and exposed underwater photograph is pleasing enough for a passing shot of some particularly rare or elusive marine critter. This is simply a picture that "collects" the critter, and many published underwater photographs are just that - specimen shots, not works of art.
But a better shot would not only show the critter but also communicate what it feels like to be there, get you excited and a bit wobbly in the knees - and make you want to book your next dive trip.
The picture should be beautiful, too, because I believe the underwater world is the most beautiful world I have ever seen, rivalled only by Big Daddy's strip joint on Bourbon Street in New Orleans (no, that's not true, I just added that in case you thought I was getting too serious).
Regrettably, very few painters are able to capture the mystery and magic of the underwater world. Most paint clichéd scenes - dolphins, whales and red coral cod unrealistically posed in infinite visibility - without capturing any of the emotion that you experience while actually diving there.
My wife Dinah and I own a couple of large original paintings by artist Robert Strachan. He layers his colourful works with real and imaginary coral reef life and the result keeps the eyes searching. As with real diving, you discover one critter only to be distracted by another.
If ever I am stuck at home needing a dive, I can look at the painting and it takes me straight under water. Those pictures communicate the dynamics and diversity of the living reef.
Dinah is as good at discovering critters in the painting as she is under water, and delights in showing them to me. Aussie red wine is excellent preparation.
A lot of people who know nothing about art say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It's a cretinous argument. Beauty is intrinsic to the work of art, although unfortunately many uneducated eyes and ears may be unable to perceive or explain this.
There is certainly no formula for great art, but remember all those lessons on composing a photograph by applying the "rule of thirds"?
If you applied this rule you probably ended up with a "better" composed picture than you had originally, but actually there is no "rule of thirds" - it's just an approximation to the "Golden Section" which occurs in nature and which humans find pleasing to the eye - because it's natural!
I'm about to preach "The Perfect Dive". The Perfect Dive is the result of treating diving as an art form and not a recreation.
It is not in the eye of the beholder, even if your buddy is watching you (some chance). It's about the way you actually make your next dive, what you feel while you're doing it, and how you communicate it to your lover or friend.
You will be aware of everything you experience from the moment you glide into the water to the moment you slide back to the surface.
Your dive will not be about technique, but about celebrating life, particularly yours. You will open yourself to the total sensation and make it part of you. You will remember every instant.
While you're down there you will take ONE perfect photograph (36 times, or more if digital!).
Transport yourself the way the great artists have, and do. I know you think I'm nuts, but you really should try this.
When you get back on the boat, tell me about it.
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