|
Full
circle
by
Mike Glover
Reproduced
from in focus 19
(December 1986)
'Blackpool
Sands, South Devon
25/8/74
- 15 metres for 35 minutes.
Dived
with KA,V, who found a plaice.
Saw
a dog fish and handled an
18'
soft lobster - glorious blue colour
Oh!
for a camera'
After
a log-book entry like that it was inevitable - an Ikelite
housing appeared at Christmas.
A
logical choice with a limited budget as my Pentax spotmatic
with a standard lens slid straight into it. Combined with
a borrowed flash housing, I was in business.
First
a 'dive' to 100 feet in the Stoney Cove pat with
a bucket of water to check that the housings were alright.
Fine, then for the real thing to practise viewing, focussing
etc. Disaster on the second dive. Four to five feet down and
water was flooding into the housing - the internal flash cord
was trapped between the housing and the back plate, The fact
that the lens hood was still in place was irrelevant. The
Pentax was saved at a repair cost of £447.00. A lucky
escape!
Its
quite clear that my log-book entries now had quite a different
flavour and I was really enjoying my diving. There's talk
of bracketting, filters and films. Dives became noticeably
shallower and increasingly some one else was handling the
dreaded ball float.
At
Chesil in July 1975 met Tim Glover - yes the great man himself
- who said try extension tubes rather than diopters. The next
month was my first experience of a Splash-in and a real introduction
to BSoUP - 'no prizes but great fun'.
Soon
however there's a note of frustration creeping in about focussing
and composition problems, a combination of failing eyesight
and viewing through a standard SLR prism.
By
1977 I had moved over and had a Nikonos II and extension tubes
and life became less fraught in many ways. Having said that,
my first,real success came with an lkelite sequence of a Jellyfish,
which took Beginner's Silver at Brighton in 1979.
The
two biggest turning points thereafter have to be the arrival
in 1979 of a 15 mm lens and a Nikonos Close-up lens. To me
the 15 mm only ever really came into its own in tropical waters,
whereas the close-up, particularly when combined with a 28
mm lens, is a wonderful system in any water. Both additions
brought results at Cameras in 1981 and Brighton in 1983.
Today
its all change and back to a housing -full circle. Why?
It
had begun to dawn on me that my pictures were unexciting and
unsuccessful. They lacked composition and drama. I started
to talk to other photographers and ask questions. The Joy
of BSoUP. Pete Scoones and Georgette were particularly helpful
and generous.
So
now its a Hugyfot housing, Pentax LX with sports finder and
50 mm macro lens. The sheer Joy of being able to see what
you are going to get is unbelievable. It also cuts down an
the frustrdtion of having to decide to use the wrong lens
on a Nikonos. Its beautifully compact and simpler to load
and use than with some housings.
I
hope its true that I think I can see an improvement in my
results already, |
