So I really like photos of coralheads with divers. There is something about the combination that I like - it might be the sense of scale, or just the visual presentation of the activity I've grown to enjoy - but I found myself looking for such opportunities on this year's dive trip to Cozumel.

If you haven't seen the inspirational shot from last year's trip, take a few minutes and go read the discussion of the photoshop adjustments I made to another coralhead and divers photo.

This one I snapped of Anya with this small coralhead in the foreground. I am not overly thrilled with this photo as I didn't like the posture I caught Anya in - she was adjusting some equipment or maybe just finishing up equalizing her ears. You need to get the air pressure inside your ears to match that outside, so as you dive you have to constantly be aware of it and equalize as needed. It becomes something you almost do without thinking or it can really hurt! Think about when you last flew in an airplane or drove to the top of a mountain - did your ears "pop"? That's basically the same thing but with water pressure pressing on your ears and you need to get it to balance on the inside. Anyway - it doesn't make for really great photograph material.

It isn't often that Anya is that far from me during a dive. We tend to be pretty conservative divers and stick pretty close. Plus, just like on our terrestrial photo excursions, Anya tends to be a fantastic spotter, so usually she's just ahead of me pointing out the cool thing to photograph next.

The other coralhead and diver photo is of one of our dive instructors - Brigette. She is the epitome of calm when diving. I am amazed to see a bubble trail coming from her in this photo actually, because many of us believe she doesn't breath at all while underwater (there are rumors of gills hiding somewhere). Brigette almost always gets back on the boat with the most air left in her tank of any of the divers in our group. I think both Anya and I strive to someday be as calm in the water as Brigette.

Anyway, I like this photo a bit more from a technical standpoint. The overall layout - especially with the vertical orientation - helps to provide a different perspective to things. The coralhead in the foreground helps to add to the perception of the size (though it does exaggerate the coralhead to be larger than it was). The placement of the coralhead falls nicely on one of the thirds, providing a nice balance to the photo and produces much less empty blue space than the previous photo.

What I don't like about the photo (aside from the blue color cast) is the lack of depth perception - the photo appears to be extremely flat. That might be fixable in photoshop. Unfortunately, the timing was slightly off here too as I left Brig's fins hidden behind the coralhead, which I feel leaves out a vital element of a photo of a diver. And of course, the color cast causes the coralhead to lose all of its beautiful color and diversity.

Ok - so I guess I could resist critiquing the photos after all... I just took a less formal approach to it. Be sure to stop back again soon as I have wreck photos, fish photos, and maybe some other little surprises in the hopper for additional posts from this trip.

- Bill