Underwater Photos in Komodo: Shallow Light, Slow Fins

Water filters color and sharpness before you take the picture. Habits for clearer, warmer reef photos, from staying near the surface to waiting for slack water, that leave the coral untouched.

Underwater, the sea edits your pictures before you take them. Water filters out color, softens edges and lays a blue veil over everything, and that veil thickens with every meter between you and your subject. Most of the fixes are habits rather than equipment. Whatever you carry into the water around Komodo, these habits make reef photos clearer and warmer, and leave the reef as you found it.

Stay in the top few meters

Sunlight does not pass through seawater evenly. NOAA's Ocean Explorer notes that red light is filtered out quickly as depth increases, while blue travels furthest, followed by green, yellow and orange. That is why reds and oranges are the first colors to fade as you go deeper, and why bright, shallow water keeps the most color.

For snorkelers, this is an advantage, because shallow reef sits in the strongest light. Notice where the sun is coming from. With the sun behind you, falling on the side of the subject that faces you, colors come forward. Look up toward it instead and you get a different picture: fish or a swimmer in silhouette against the bright surface. Oceanic Society suggests keeping the sun slightly off-center in those upward frames, which creates shafts of light around your subject.

Close the gap

Distance works the same way. Every bit of water between you and your subject takes away color, contrast and sharpness. So the most useful rule in underwater photography is also the simplest: get closer, then a little closer still. One snorkeling guide suggests ideally less than a meter, as long as you can get there without disturbing the animal or touching the reef.

Closer does not mean faster. Approach slowly, and leave an animal alone the moment it shows signs of stress. Hold your position and let fish come back on their own. Start with subjects that stay put, such as coral, anemones and clams, before moving on to fish. With moving fish, take many frames. The same guide notes that a good fish photo sometimes takes about fifteen tries.

Wait for calm water

Clarity changes with the site and the weather, and Komodo's water moves a lot. The Important Shark and Ray Areas factsheet for the Komodo Islands describes strong tidal currents, seasonal upwelling and water flowing between the Pacific and Indian oceans, which together make these seas highly productive. The same site can look very different depending on the tide.

One Komodo snorkeling guide advises letting your guide time each swim for slack tide, the quiet spell between tides when the current eases. Ask your guide or crew when a site is likely to be calmest, listen to the briefing and stay with the group. If the water is choppy or the current is strong, put the pictures aside and follow your guide; there will be calmer stops. In gentle water, hang still above a coral head and wait for the fish to settle. Sunny days over shallow reef give the brightest, clearest color.

Find stillness in the water

Sharp pictures come from a still body. The instinct is to grab a rock or plant a fin; on a reef, find stillness in the water instead.

• Snorkelers: float flat on the surface, keep your legs quiet and use slow, small fin kicks rather than fast flutters. If you dive down, go gently so you do not startle your subject. A snorkel vest helps less confident swimmers relax and float with less effort.
• Divers: settle your buoyancy before you think about pictures, keep your body horizontal with your fins slightly raised, and use your breath for small adjustments up and down. Dive within your training and follow your dive guide.
• Everyone: slow, steady breathing and no sudden movements keep your body, and your frame, steady.

Put people in the scene

A person in a reef photo gives scale and a story. A few habits help.

• Agree on a few simple hand signals before you get in, so you can ask a friend to pause, turn or swim past again.
• Ask them to swim slowly and level across the frame, well above the coral, rather than diving down to pose beside it.
• Get to their level. Shooting at a subject's own height usually works better than looking straight down, and shooting upward from slightly below turns a swimmer at the surface into a clean silhouette.
• Use the reef as foreground. Coral or fish close to you, with your friend further back, adds depth. Keep the person off-center.
• Shoot plenty. Hair, bubbles and fins change shape every second, and more frames give you a better chance of catching them right.

Give the reef room

No picture is worth a broken coral. Keep your body, fins and gear a little above the reef, and let fish and other animals come closer on their own terms. For the full reef etiquette and the park's current rules, read our post on responsible travel in Komodo, and follow your guide's briefing on where and when to get in the water.