An influencer’s top tips for shooting underwater
While we often see photographers lugging around heavy DLSR cameras and massive zoom lenses, it seems that sometimes all you really need is your iPhone. Well, that’s certainly the case for Ryan Pernofski – who has just released a book where every image was taken using his phone.
Titled Salt and Light, the book was created after Ryan headed out to surf each day to capture countless waves for his popular Instagram feed @ryanpernofski. Keeping the phone safe using an Optrix case, he explains his choice to ditch the camera: “I like to shoot on iPhone because it’s easy to swim around with rather than a large camera and I can edit and post straight from the device it was taken.”
Here Ryan reveals his top three tips for budding photographers:
- Look for light. Light variations, including variations in the light source, dramatically affect the colour and mood/feel of your photo. Look for where the light is coming from. There are so many subtle tones and colours that only really come from natural light – whether it’s the sun shining through the face of a wave or through a nearby window onto a subject.
- Clean your lens! A super practical tip and something I am quite OCD about as it can have such an impact on the quality of a shot.
- Look for tension. Tension in a photograph occurs when something is unresolved and keeps the viewer questioning what will happen next. In photos, tension can be created by making something still that is not usually still. I think this is why photos of breaking waves are captivating.
Ryan also has a preference for using the Burst mode to capture a specific moment and the slo-mo option for video.
Interesting. Thanks.