Perhaps one of the most important parts of the scholarship year is learning to take underwater photos and videos – without these skills it is impossible to document all of the incredible experiences! Since we were relative novices with our cameras and rigs, European Scholar Mae and I headed off early in our year to Denmark, where we spent a week with professional photo/videographer and Scandinavian scholarship coordinator Lars Kirkegaard of FOTOGRAFIT.
After some minor travel troubles, Mae and I finally arrived at Aarhus (sans several bags of luggage) but still clutching the most important pieces – our Panasonic Lumix GX85 cameras and Nauticam housings provided by Reef Photo & Video.
Lars, Mae, and I spent an entire afternoon discussing ISO, aperture, and shutter speed, before heading to Lars’s shop, where we went over every piece of our camera rigs with the FOTOGRAFIT crew.
Next, Lars took us to the pool at Aquatic Marine, a dive center in Aarhus and perhaps the largest dive center I have ever been in! We spent hours practicing wide angle and macro photos of various objects.
Finally, we headed out into the ocean to test our knowledge with FOTOGRAFIT staff member Kristoffer Nymann, who also happens to be a Nauticam Young Talent Ambassador.
This was an incredible shore dive, and the rocks beneath the pier were teeming with macro life such as tiny sea stars.
After taking hundreds of photos in the ocean, Lars walked Mae and me through the basics of editing and storage. We went over various editing functions in Adobe Lightroom and discussed how to manage and organize the thousands of megabytes of photos that we will take during our scholarship year. Overall, the week was a comprehensive education in underwater photography!
Thank you so much to Lars and his family for welcoming Mae and me into their home, and to the FOTOGRAFIT crew for helping with our underwater photography course. Thank you to Aqualung, Halcyon, Reef Photo & Video, Nauticam, Light and Motion, DUI, and Fourth Element for providing all the gear necessary for this learning experience. And of course thank you to OWUSS and Rolex for this year of opportunity!
