Digital Photography Tips: How to Shoot Abstract Underwater Photography

Our underwater world and its array of marine life in a spectrum of colours and textures provides us with endless opportunities to create abstract images — which can often present common subjects in an unusual way. Applying a different composition and often using different equipment, it's possible to create abstract images of corals or familiar fish. These common underwater subjects can have an air of mystique about them that can leave the viewer thinking, "Wow! What is it?!?!?!"

To quote underwater photography guru Martin Edge: “To abstract, we 'take away', and with abstract photography we take away the identity of the subject matter." Move away from "the norm" and look at subjects in a new way, concentrating on the key elements of abstract photography, such as colours, patterns, textures, lines and shapes. Unlike conventional underwater photography, abstract photography uses these key elements to create images with no true meaning, intentionally confusing the viewer. However, the overall aim is not just to confuse the viewer, but to create a visually appealing image that many would consider a piece of art.

Abstracts (most commonly macro abstracts) are a good option on a dive if you're doing your safety stop on a shallow reef; if you've chosen the wrong lens for the dive site; or more commonly, when you just can't find anything "good" to photograph!

Here are some tips to help you when shooting abstracts:

Subject. Be on the lookout for bright colours, bizarre patterns and textures, and an easy, stationary subject. Ideal subjects to start with are the surfaces of sponges, sea stars, sea cucumbers, and hard and soft corals. Others I always enjoy shooting include Christmas tree worms, clams, nudibranchs, sea fans, and last, but not least — bubbles! Larger animals can also make good abstract subjects, by shooting only a small part of them — so look for interesting eyes, scales and fins. Cleaning stations on a reef are a good place to shoot abstracts of larger fish.

Equipment. Macro lenses are most useful for this kind of photography, such as the 60, 100 and 105mm. Using a 105mm lens allows you to shoot shy subjects like fish from slightly farther away. Adding a 1.4x teleconverter will give you even more room between you and the subject, making it easier to capture images of fish eyes/scales/fins, etc. without needing to crop the image when you edit.

Use a diopter (e.g., +5, +10) on your housing's macro port for supermacro abstracts; however, depth of field will be reduced. If you're committed to shooting supermacro on a particular dive, then my personal preference is to use extension tubes between the camera and lens. This allows you to get closer to your subject, giving greater magnification, but maintaining more control over depth of field than using a diopter — which is advantageous when trying to capture the finer details in a pattern or texture.

To get your colours to pop and to enhance the overall contrast of the subject, shoot with strobes. Lighting your subject can sometimes uncover hidden colours and textures, invisible to the naked eye.

Settings. To capture the most detail in textures and patterns on the surface of various marine animals, you'll need to use a high f-stop (e.g., f/22 – f/32), which will give you a large depth of field. Use a low ISO, a shutter speed of ~1/160 sec, and keep your strobes on a high power setting.

Stunning abstracts can also be created using a low f-stop (e.g., f/2.8) with a narrow depth of field, which gives soft, pastel colours, and beautiful bokeh (blur). While drawing the viewer's attention to the particular point of focus in the frame, it can also "blur out" any distracting features in the subject.

Using your camera's autofocus will be suitable for most scenarios, but shooting supermacro abstracts is best done by locking the focus to manual, and adjusting camera-subject distance manually.

Composition. Follow the classic rule — get close, and then get even closer. Ideally, you want to fill the frame with the abstract subject, keeping out any distracting background such as sand, reef or blue water. (You can always do a bit of cropping when you edit your image, but try to get it perfect when you shoot!)

In most cases, when you're shooting textures or patterns, you need the subject to be parallel with your camera's macro port — to ensure the subject is as sharp as possible across the frame.

In all photography you should keep the Rule of Thirds in mind, and keep the eyes of an animal away from the centre of the frame.

Wide-angle. If you're attempting abstracts and shooting wide-angle you need to be a bit more creative, because it's certainly more challenging compared to macro as the wide field of view makes it difficult to eliminate distractions in the vast background, while the greater depth of field means shallow focus is no longer possible. Try some abstracts in open blue water, and silhouettes, while reflections on the surface of the water always offer some interesting results.

Experiment. All kinds of techniques can be used to create abstract images, so it's up to you to experiment with your underwater camera equipment and see what works. For example, use a slow shutter speed to create some movement in your image. Or perhaps back-light your subject using a torch. The possibilities go on and on. However, don't start calling your out-of-focus images "abstract" — you won't fool anyone!

Abstract photography comes down to your own personal preference, without any rules set in stone. Your goal should be to create a "piece of art" that puzzles, engages and amazes the viewer. Good luck!

Christian Loader (30, UK) is a professional photographer for Scubazoo Images. He has worked extensively throughout SE Asia as an underwater videographer and photographer, and is currently based in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia.