Photographic genres and experiences in Underwater photography, Nature photography and Photojournalism.
There are many genres of photography that many can be drawn to, however for me, there are only a few that take my liking and passion and time.
Following on from my last post a few weeks back, photographing for me is one that constantly involves nature, reportage, underwater photography, landscapes and seascapes .while these are photography genres, as I said they are all the same and one.
I track back on my time as both a Journalist and Photojournalist working for the Nation Media Group from Kenya as the Mauritius Correspondent Journalist/Photojournalist reporting on news and events in Mauritius, writing the articles and taking the editorial photos required to fit the news editors
I was also doing many freelance shots for other news agencies and writing many stories on the natural environment before me working with the Nation Media Group.
Coincidently this is how I started my land-based photography, funny enough, or I could say not that rare and funny enough…. photography, and I say nearly all of my formation years in learning the principles and fundamentals of photography came from being first a scuba diver and underwater photographer, this is where I learnt the trade so to speak.
Underwater photography is where I learnt photography in general and it is a genre that my photography that started to become serious or as I like to term it enthusiastic and workable.
While before all this, I was a Scuba Diving Instructor working in dive centres at hotels in Mauritius to teach and instruct new and experienced divers and lead many dives, I have logged over 400 dives to date. I still have my Scuba Diver Instructor rating, however, I am not instructing currently.
How I learnt all of my photography genres by making mistakes and improving over many years, with many lenses and many camera bodies. I am a self-taught photographer …for me, this has taught me so so so much.
The only way I have ever learnt photography was to read and read, practice what I read and read again, make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. Underwater photography is where I made many mistakes, but learnt so much about photography in general, from the basic, the fundamental and real-life experiences.
As I was gaining my photographer experience whilst having my journalistic writing skills honed and developed being a news writer reporting on current affairs, politics, environment and business stories from Mauritius, I was also scuba diving around the island republic as a freelance underwater photographer for Plongee Mauriciennes (MauritiusScuba Dive Magazine) publication.
Many times this allowed me to take days off to photograph for myself and the magazine at the time. This was a steep but worthy learning curve as well both in terms of time since I was photographing 2 times a week for the magazine, and then writing my news stories to be submitted by the end of the working day.
Many many other days I was photographing on the streets and then other days when I was not writing I was hiking in the mountains and countless and I mean countless days doing landscapes and seascapes photography.
The photojournalism and reportage shots are the ones I did many for my work as a Journalist and Photojournalist, I learnt a lot from this, not just the photographic genres, but I learnt how to write both as a journalistic writer and as a photographer taking those photojournalism and reportage shots so often required by news editors.
Again as I have stated in my last post underwater photography and the marine sciences that intrinsically are Marine Biology and Oceanography have always played a big part ever since I started underwater photography, as I see the marine sciences linked to what we see underwater and gives me a real sense of understanding of the marine world, our daily interactions with it and to be honest and factual it is education.
So yeah, I guess working, writing and photographing for news stories is where the photojournalist comes out in me, writing …well that was a daily thing for news … I did a lot of it too !! Not to mention the research, which was a lot as well !!
Reportage shoots I do to get out on the street and meet people for news stories and interact with this daily life we all live, it is a genre of photography which is quite challenging, it is very unique and I find it similar to underwater photography in behaviour and actions alone however. Everything else is different…but the genres are similar in many ways.
You need to plan where you want to take your photos geographically speaking that is of sometimes fast-moving, candid and elusive subjects that can be unpredictable and sometimes nasty, nice and shy, this itself is very similar to underwater photography, the only difference is that in underwater photography it is animals and fish and a whole host of marine life creatures, taking photos of people is no different, you can deal with the same variables with humans in their land-based habitat as well!!
But underwater photography has been and will continue to be the most challenging in terms of h very fact of the types of equipment needed and photo shooting techniques, like. It is what you can bring to your photography and the subjects you intend to take photos of.
It is not the place that you are, it is the subject you wish to photograph, and most importantly …studying your subject before you photograph and after you photograph. This alone is photography for me ..it is the subject of the photograph, the essence of what you are trying to convey, what are you trying to teach, inform of put focus on in your photo.
So there it goes …Underwater photography, Photojournalism, and Nature photography are the genres of photography that I can relate to well, this with a journalistic writing background that has helped me to express what I see, photograph it and write about it and utilize what I know about Marine Biology and Oceanography to explain the marine and oceanic environment.
Having said that, I can combine my writing, photojournalism, underwater photography and nature photography while including my long passion for the marine sciences such as Marine Biology and Underwater photography.
As I have noted at the start of this post, there are many genres of photography, each having its intricacies and following that comes with a passion and that appeal to many photographers and many people who do not photograph but like appealing photos of all kinds, that could be news editors, news agencies, magazines, stock photo agencies, strangers, your friends and family, followers on social media sites and platforms.
Linley Bignoux-English Teacher/ Photographer 