Five Decades of Underwater Photography Excellence

We chat to Stephen Frink, undoubtedly one of many world’s most-frequently revealed underwater photographers, about a few of his most-memorable exploits, and what it’s wish to be on the helm of DAN’s Alert Diver journal.

Early Years: From Competitive Swimming to Scuba Diving

Q: As we at all times do with these Questions and Answer periods, how did you first get into scuba diving?

A: Accidentally, as is the case with many good issues in life. I grew up in Illinois, distant from water. Unless you depend the Mississippi River and its six inches of vis. But I used to be a aggressive swimmer right through school, so all issues aquatic had attraction. Especially scuba diving, with that hook planted by watching the exploits of Mike Nelson on the outdated TV sequence Sea Hunt. It wasn’t a motivating ardour, although, not less than not sufficient to go get licensed till I used to be in graduate college in California. Each day I drove by the Long Beach Marina on my technique to courses, I noticed an indication. Scuba Duba. I didn’t know what they did, however I wanted a part-time job, so I finished in. They had been a service that cleaned boats, they usually wanted some assist. But, with a purpose to be employed, I needed to be a licensed scuba diver. I took the course and obtained the job. I grew to become a scuba diver in 1971 for the 25 cents a linear foot they paid me to scrape the barnacles off boats.

Discovering the Camera: Stephen Frink’s Path Into Underwater Photography

Q: When did you first get into underwater pictures? Were you already a land photographer and took your pursuits with you as you entered the realm of diving?

A: My Master’s diploma is in Experimental Psychology, however actually, I wasn’t all that excited about it by the point I obtained to graduate college. I’d completed up my course work however was nonetheless engaged on my thesis, which meant I had a while to spare. I enrolled in an elective class in fundamental pictures, with an emphasis on black and white and darkroom work. The alchemy of all of it intrigued me, working below the amber safelight and seeing a print emerge whereas gently rocking a tray of Dektol. Photography grew to become my ardour, and within the 12 months I had left to complete my thesis, I took each picture class they provided.

As a curious apart, my thesis advisor took me apart someday and informed me he knew I wasn’t into psychology and appeared to be extra excited about scuba diving and pictures. I nonetheless wanted a thesis matter and he stated he might organize an interdepartmental program with Dr Don Nelson, who I later came upon was a really well-known shark researcher. In our interview I requested what he wanted his analysis assistants to do. He stated he had a speculation that when sharks are poised to assault, they dropped their pectoral fins and arch their backs, and to review this behaviour they had been chumming for blue sharks within the open ocean close to Catalina. I had the thought that being the man within the water whose job it was to piss off a shark wasn’t all that brilliant. Of course, I’d do it in the present day, however on the time that appeared a scary prospect. So, as an alternative I studied the consequences of ‘Acoustic Confusability on Short Term Memory’. After the numbing boredom of that, most any job would have been higher.

Film, Darkrooms and the Nikonos Era

Q: You began on the planet of underwater pictures manner again within the late Nineteen Seventies, within the days of movie cameras and E6 processing, and have seen digital expertise from its infancy to the place it’s now. What have been the most important adjustments for you as knowledgeable shooter?

A: My early profession was extra within the darkroom finish of issues. After I obtained out of graduate college I moved to Kona, Hawaii for some time and had a job at evening capturing vacationers at luaus. I’d take the images of a Polynesian mannequin placing leis on the necks of vacationer. Someone else would make prints at evening. Someone else would have them on the market the subsequent morning within the resort. That gave me the entire day without work so I’d go shore diving. By then I had a Nikonos II and a 35mm lens, however no strobe. Your can think about my images within the period had been fairly monochromatic and depressing, however simply taking a digital camera underwater was a revelation.

We didn’t know one another then, however Chris Newbert was in Kona on the similar time. He was ready tables at evening and doing underwater pictures together with his Canon F1 in a housing and Oceanic strobes. He was coming dwelling with the seminal images that finally grew to become ‘Within a Rainbowed Sea’. I used to be capturing roll after roll of crap.

Actually, I just about dropped out of diving after that. I moved to Colorado and obtained a job as a customized color printer at a industrial and promoting pictures studio, making massive Type C prints. But, a buddy of mine from the swim crew who got here to dive with me in Hawaii wasn’t able to be achieved with diving. He moved to Key Largo, Florida and obtained a job as a salvage diver on the shipwrecks of the 1733 Spanish Fleet. They had been nonetheless discovering silver on the wrecks on the time and employed grunt divers to go fan sand and hope to find a coin. I got here to Key Largo to go to him in 1978 and seemed across the city. No one was renting cameras to the vacationers and I additionally noticed a chance to course of E-6slide movie for them. Underwater pictures was a novelty then and for probably the most half, individuals didn’t personal their very own cameras and E-6could be achieved the identical day, in contrast to the Kodachrome course of that needed to be mailed away. I met the fellows at Ocean Divers and requested them if I might come again and lease a nook of their dive store for a darkroom and retail counter. They stated OK, and by November of 1978 I had moved to Key Largo to offer underwater pictures a strive.

The Digital Turning Point in Underwater Imaging

But, that’s not the query you requested. You requested about digital expertise. That was the watershed second in underwater imaging, because it supplied immediacy of evaluate. I had that in a small manner after I was studying underwater pictures in Key Largo. Remember that after I moved there it was for digital camera leases and movie processing. I wasn’t a professional shooter. I’d by no means shot macro or vast angle and even used a strobe underwater, But, I did have the chance to dive any time I wished to with my buddies within the native dive business – Ocean Divers, Quiescence, and Atlantis. So, I might shoot so much, course of my movie straight away, and be taught to do it higher the subsequent day. That’s what digital brings to the (gentle) desk. You can see it on the level of publicity, and simply research and enhance it on the pc display screen instantly. RAW images have way more publicity latitude than slide movie, and there’s no ‘range anxiety’ (to make use of an electrical automobile metaphor). My first critical housed digital camera was a Sea and Sea for a Bronica C, a 2 ¼ x 2 ¼ format that gave me 12 exposures. 12 exposures on a dive versus the nearly limitless capability from a digital seize system. That alone is one other large profit.

I migrated to 35mm movie finally, utilizing EO (Electro Oceanic) connectors on every digital camera so I might carry three cameras on a dive however solely a single strobe that I might wet-connect underwater. But even so, 36 x 3 = 108 exposures isn’t a lot in comparison with what a digital shooter will get today. The entire bundle of immediacy of evaluate, shoot capability per dive, publicity forgiveness of RAW, and ease of archiving so totally subsumed any worth there is perhaps to movie. Plus, the ecological waste of movie and chemical substances was fairly clear to me by having a movie processing lab and worrying about what waste would possibly do to the delicate corals offshore. I wasn’t the earliest adapter. I give the nod to James Watt for that. But, by 2001, the digital die was fairly nicely solid for me.

From Local Assignments to Global Dive Travel

Q: You spent a few years on task for Skin Diver journal, and later Scuba Diving, in addition to contributing to many different titles – together with my outdated title Sport Diver UK. What have been a few of your favorite locations, and why?

A: Actually, my first journal gig was with one other Sport Diver, the outdated title revealed by Richard Stewart in Miami. They had been blown out with gusting winds whereas capturing Marathon for a Florida Keys article, and I believe they assumed that if I had a photograph studio I need to know one thing about underwater pictures. I’d by no means shot vast angle by then, and definitely by no means with a mannequin. But, I knew the journal and how much images they anticipated. So, I borrowed a Seacor 21mm lens from a pal, and a dive teacher from Ocean Divers travelled with me to Marathon to shoot. When I took the vis sheet of processed slides to Miami for evaluate they favored them and requested if I might go to the Caymans for them the subsequent month. In that second I transitioned from working a retail retailer with movie processing to being a contract underwater photojournalist. I did each, however finally photojournalism and inventory pictures grew to become my emphasis. With Miami as my gateway, my beat was the Caribbean. Cayman, Bahamas, Roatan, St Lucia, Bonaire, and clearly the Florida Keys. I did that for 3 years till the journal folded after which I referred to as Bonnie Cardone at Skin Diver to see if they’d any work for me. They did, for the subsequent 17 years really, after which for Rodale’s Scuba Diving for one more ten years. My beat remained a lot the identical. I travelled the Caribbean fairly frequently, and the diving was fairly wonderful again then. The Florida Keys had the fish, however in all places else had the visibility and partitions.

They had been blown out with gusting winds whereas capturing Marathon for a Florida Keys article, and I believe they assumed that if I had a photograph studio I need to know one thing about underwater pictures

Yet, there was nonetheless a ‘sameness’ to it. The similar fish anyway. No one was going to ship me to the abroad exotics on task, and I couldn’t actually afford to go alone as a vacationer. So, I took the plunge. In 1982 I chartered the Sunboat within the Red Sea for my first industrial journey mission. I don’t know the way I offered it out, however I did, and with even the primary splash I used to be blown away. I had in thoughts I wished to {photograph} a clownfish, a lionfish, and a mannequin with crimson smooth coral just like the images I’d seen from Rick Frehsee and Sari Gains again within the day. I had every week to make that occur.

On my first dive within the Red Sea I had alternatives for all three topics, and that began a decades-long fascination with international tropical dive journey. My journey firm, WaterHouse Photo Tours, sometimes hosts three unique journeys every year to the most-iconic common dive locations… Indonesia, Palau, Philippines, Maldives, and many others. But, we additionally do species-specific journeys. Moorea or the Silver Bank for humpbacks. South Australia for nice white sharks. That form of factor. Typically we establish a goal, it could possibly be macro, lovely coral reef, megafauna, and many others. Once we determine what we need to shoot, we choose the perfect locations on the planet that current these photo-ops. 

Read Part II of this interview

Frequently Asked Questions