Written by Chris Manning
Thanks to Mark Gray for sharing his images, tips, and stories with DallasDivers.com.

Mark Gray is not a Dallas diver. He is dive enthusiast who lives in Australia and happens to take some of the most engaging macro images of marine life that I have run across in some time. If you want to check out his work, head over to the image gallery. I interviewed Mark to discuss his diving background and get some tips for capturing great underwater images.

Q1. Tell us about yourself. Where do you live? How do you make a living (i.e., what is your “day job”)?
A1. I live near the popular coastal town on Byron Bay, which is located at the most Easterly point of the Australian mainland. I have lived in the area for the past 23 out of my 32 years. I currently work at Returned Services League Club, which is to be compared to the legion in the USA. I also work part time at the Byron Bay Dive Centre as a DM/guide.

Q2. How long have you been diving?
A2. I was always interested in the ocean and the life it contains. As a child remembering watching old TV adventure shows with Jacque Cousteau, Ben Cropp, Ron and Val Taylor. I was either on the water surfing or under the water spear fishing from an early age.

Q3. What got you interested in the sport?
A3. About five years ago I had a checkup with my local doctor and I enquired about my ability to go scuba diving as I had problems with my hearing as a child. My doctor told me there was no reason not dive. So shortly after while on holidays in Cairns (gateway to the Great Barrier Reef) I completed my OW and AOW certification after a total of 11 dives.

On my return home I went to one of the local dive shops (Byron Bay Dive Centre) as asked about dive club and wanting to more diving. It was the start of the busy time of year and one of the owners offered free dives if I helped around the shop. So I grabbed at the opportunity to give more dives in for nothing. During this time I racked up a fair bit of diving and completed my Rescue as well as my SSI Dive Control Specialist and started to guide other visiting divers to the famous Julian Rocks Marine Reserve, which is classed as one of Australia’s top 10 dive sites. Great mix of tropical and temperate waters with awesome range of marine life, from macro to the annual migration of Humpback whales.

Q4. How long have you been doing uw photography?
A4. It wasn’t long after my introduction to diving that I picked up a digital camera for the first time and bought a underwater housing to document my underwater adventures to the otherwise land locked family and friends. It was a Cannon A40 with huge 2 mega pixels and 256m-memory card. At the time it was my pride and joy and started off something, which I quickly started to fall in love with. I would buy magazines and read books all about the art of taking photos underwater and I guess I still do today.

Q5. What kind of equipment do you have?
A5. I wasn’t until recently (6 months ago) I jumped from a pro-consumer camera into the world of dSLR’s. I purchased a Nikon D80 which was accompanied with a new Ikelite housing and port. The Nikon was then matched to the two Ikelite ds125’s, which I already had. It wasn’t long after that I found that I needed specialized lens and ports for all my different styles and subjects, which I didn’t need when I had my point and shoot compacts. I quickly purchased a Nikkor 60mm Macro lens and matching Ikelite flat port and this was the start of my collection of lenses for underwater.

Q6. Were you a photographer before becoming a diver?
A6. I was basically flying blind at first where I didn’t know and F-stop from a bus stop. I started to look at the professional shots printed in international magazines and especially took note of the information of each shot that I liked the look of (i.e. Nikkor 60mm, ISO 100, 1/80th and f-22). It gave me a point to start from and with the skills already obtained with my little compacts it started to give me more and more constant results.

Q7. Your work has such vivid color. Are you doing any enhancements in Photoshop? If so, what are your keys to leveraging PS for
uw photography?
A7. Every dive I had the same lens (Nikkor 60mm) and every shot was based on a macro subject. This is why I have many good results on close ups. That’s all I had to use. It didn’t take long before I started to get results from every dive. In poor visibility, the macro lens is the only choice to have.

I preview my shots as well as my histogram and adjust my f-stops accordingly. I would try as much as possible to capture a subject the same way as film photographer would and take my time in getting into a good position, close as possible, with the only difference is that I have a few hundred shots available and not just 36. Its then you notice the difference in the quality of the lens. The ability to focus and the speed it focus made the little compacts I have used before seem very slow. But when you look at the cost of a good lens it is most likely to be more expensive than the compact camera itself.

Q8. You seem to excel at shooting closeups of marine life. How much of that success is equipment vs. technique?
A8. Shooting with a dSLR but using a film photographers style reduced the amount of off the cuff shots and wasted time spent on trying to get the shot of the year. But it wasn’t long before I was introduced to Photoshop 7. This came about from meeting a young lady who used to work in fashion magazine and it was her job to make everything more bold and beautiful so to speak. She basically gave me a crash course in Photoshop and still to this date I know very little about it and really require doing a course on it in the near future. I only really adjust the image levels, colour balance and sometimes the brightness and contrast. I try and get the best image first than try and repair it with Photoshop. I must admit that after learning a thing or two with Photoshop it made me go back through all my old images taken on the point and shoot and repairing them to a much better standard than before. It was like a whole new collection of images.

Q9. What are your favorite locations to shoot?
A9. I am the first to admit that I live and dive in a very special area. Julian Rocks Marine Reserve is a relatively small area but with a huge variety of different marine life. Diving the area up to 10 times a week helps a lot also. Knowing the site like the back of your hand makes such a big difference as it also helps you relate to other divers with the same knowledge. Biggest bonus is that when something very rare turns up everyone tells you exactly where it is.

The area changes a lot through out the year from cold temperate waters in winter to warm tropical waters in late summer. It is not uncommon to go for dive and find 10 different species of Nudibranch for your macro work and have a dozen Leopard sharks eager for you to take their photo and while all this is happening you can hear the mating song of the bull Humpback Whales in the background.

My other favorite location to date is Tulamben in Bali, Indonesia. It was my first real introduction to “muck” diving. My first thought was “There is nothing to see here”. Then slowly my eye trained onto the weird and wonderful critters. Sea horses, Moth fish, Harlequin Shrimp, Mantis Shrimp and Nudibranchs all of which I have never seen before.
Indonesia and PNG are on my list to go back to. So much diving and so little time/money.

Q10. What are your favorite photos in your collection?
A10. The shot with the Loggerhead coming down with the sunbeams is an interesting shot. The Loggerhead Turtles are residents of Julian Rocks and I believe there are about a dozen of so in the area. This particular Turtle found great interest in my camera and after this shot was taken he decided that he wanted to know what a Olympus c7070 would taste like. If you have seen these turtles ate you know how powerful their jaws are and would easy make a big mess of a camera underwater.

Q11. Any interesting encounters with marine life?
A11. One of my favorite shots is the shot of the couple diving with the sun beaming behind them. I remember that day, as it was one of my best dives at Julian Rocks. I was guiding my friends Christine and Lynden on a day which there was no current, 30m Vis, Grey Nurse sharks, Loggerhead Turtles. It was like every marine creature was having a Sunday afternoon get together. I happen to turn around at the end of the dive and take some shots for my divers with a compact I had. I couldn’t believe the shots I pulled off. It was all jag.

Q12. What is the greatest misconception about uw photography?
A12. Guess this is the biggest misconception with underwater photography, as you don’t need a camera setup worth thousands of dollars to get a great shot.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 15th, 2007 at 8:43 am and is filed under Gallery, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.