The secret to a perfect selfie under water

If you tried to take a professional-looking selfie under water with a mobile phone, that would be like attempting the Tour de France with a city bike – success would not be guaranteed. What? You have an iPhone? Guess what? An average compact camera blows that one too out of the water, pardon the pun.

These days you can take decent pictures with smaller, compact cameras too and as the last resort, even pros will turn to the iPhone. There are also a few dandy accessories like the selfie stick, for example, having gained popularity recently.

The bad news is that although you have taken the picture, it is still not ready. If you are not handy with Photoshop or you are not near a computer, the Instagram will do but don’t go overboard with the special effects!

So, what makes an underwater selfie perfect?

1. First, you must know your camera well to be able to find all the buttons and switches without having to look constantly.

2. Try to control your flying hair, especially if it is long, or you will look like a clown.

3. Hold your breath while you are taking the photo. And try to do it in a way so it is not visible in the picture. (Of course we don’t have to say never to hold your breath during diving 🙂 .)

4. Smile. Even if you are not willing to remove the mouthpiece from your mouth. Your eyes will show if you are smiling.

5. If you do take the mouthpiece out, make sure to exhale continuously, blowing small bubbles through your mouth. And if you can, smile and don’t make faces.

6. The photo should also include some of your underwater surroundings, like a wreck in the background, a few beautiful fish, a whale shark or dolphins playing around you. Pay attention to the light source coming from above and try to “plan” the picture. You can take selfies with anything and anybody that looks good or is interesting.

7. Everybody knows the golden rules – no pictures from below, finding our best features and keeping a nice posture. It is not that easy to try to insert yourself in the picture subject harmonically, or to create a good composition.

8.If you hold the camera with both hands at shoulder height, aside from your arms and heads not much will be visible. Try to hold the camera in one hand, so you are on one end of the picture and you still have room for other objects on the other end.

9. If you can focus your camera, focus it on the end where you will be.

10. Apart from the positioning mentioned, one key item is necessary to achieve the perfect selfie effect. Using your strobes properly allows your image to be nicely lit and sharp. The strobes should be pulled in right next to the camera and angled out at about 45 degrees. Using this technique you will soft light your face without backscatter.  Try to use masks that are more transparent so light can get through them on the side as well for the full face effect. Set the focus on “closest” object setting to achieve the clearest image. If you take a selfie with your buddies, hold on to them via their BCD with your right hand!

+1 Now strike a pose and click! 🙂

Photos: Gergo Gonczi and Levente Rozsahegyi