Paul Colley - Winning Images with Any Underwater Camera: The essential guide to creating engaging photos

Alex Mustard

Underwater photography used to be very difficult. Equipment was unreliable and photographers would struggle for years just to get images that came out. As a budding snapper, I wasted an entire trip not taking photos because I didnt know how to wind on my film properly. Thinking I had broken my camera, it was a full twelve months before I would have another chance to take underwater pictures!

In those days, having a wide angle photo that was reasonably in focus, not entirely obscured by backscatter and exposed so you could see what was going on was a real achievement. Only the best could do it reliably and it was often enough to win major awards.

How times have changed. Underwater camera systems now boast bulletproof reliability and are hugely capable of taking any image we can imagine. They even show us our successes and failures as we take them. Standards constantly rocket upwards, thanks to articles, books, talks and workshops. The challenge to any aspiring underwater photographer is not to simply take pictures that come out, but to make photographs that stand out.

But producing winning images underwater is as challenging as ever. It is only the nature of the challenge has changed. Today were in an age where the photographers vision is king. Everyone can produce decent looking images with any camera. It is the ideas you have, what you have to say about the subject and the way you compose your pictures that differentiates the average from the memorable. In short, composition has never been so important.

This makes Paul Colleys exciting new book Winning Images with Any Underwater Camera incredibly timely. It is a book aimed squarely at helping underwater photographers excel in achieving their visions. But this is not a spoon fed education. Pauls intention is not to teach you to paint by numbers, but to educate you and to challenge you to be master of your photographic canvas.

Compositional choices are your personal artistic expression this book will arm and inspire you to transform your underwater photographs, whatever camera you use and Paul has shown this by including a significant proportion of compact camera images in his book. Taking complete control of your photography will not only raise the standards of your work, but also the sense of satisfaction in producing something entirely your own.

I am privileged to have seen Pauls effectiveness as a teacher first hand, as weve dived together in both the Caribbean and Red Sea. In Egypt, diving on the Thistlegorm, Paul buddied up with our mutual friend Jarret Brown. Jarret is a talented macro photographer, but, as hed happily admit, he doesnt always fulfil his potential with a wide angle lens. This all changed when they started working together and even now when shooting separately, Jarret still cajoles himself to adopt the Colley disciplined and thoughtful approach. This book is your chance to have Paul Colley as buddy and mentor on your underwater photography journey.

Our oceans are also in trouble: over-fishing, pollution and global warming are severe threats. As underwater photographers we are privileged to see the wonders of the oceans first hand and it is our responsibility to share them with non-divers so the world knows what is at stake. This is the incalculable value of visually powerful underwater photographs and I hope a legacy of this book is more underwater photographers making more images that count.

Finally, on a lighter note, do look carefully and youll see evidence of my burgeoning career as an underwater model documented in these pages! Fear not, I have no intention of giving up the day job. My svelte lines are best employed behind the camera, but I remain grateful to Paul for making me look semi-elegant beneath the waves!

Alex Mustard, February 2014