Mustard’s Masterclass

In this installment, Alex Mustard explains how to get stunning fish portraits that will instantly connect with your audience

Photographs courtesy of Alex Mustard / www.amustard.com

Happily, I am coming to you from Sharm

On the plus side, absence makes the heart grow fonder and I’ve been revelling in the magnificent reefs, captivating shipwrecks and awesome schools of fish that gather in the Ras Mohammed National Park. But if there is one thing that sends my heart soaring here it is the anthias. They may be small, but these joyous technicolour marvels shout ‘Red Sea’ to me. Right now, if I had to pick my favourite fish it would be small, orange and frequently spotted massed about coral heads. Truth be told, I can never settle on a preferred fish for long, there are just too many to love. But that isn’t a problem most of the population struggle with – the average-Joe-or-Jane-in-thestreet has never considered having a favourite fish. Which presents a challenge to us as shooters because fish are a major subject and we want to produce images that people are interested in. The solution starts with honesty. Much as we love them, we have to accept that scaly, slimy fish just don’t have the natural charisma of species like polar bears, pandas, or penguins. Nor are they A-listers like sharks, dolphins or turtles. We have work harder to create images that will really appeal. The solution is to to take the viewer beyond the scales and allow them to see an individual, a creature with character and personality. Unfortunately, fish aren’t always the most co-operative subjects, they are always on the move, darting in and out of focus, waiting for the exact moment we press the shutter to turn away and leave us snapping at their tails. Here in the Red Sea, fish really are everywhere, but stand-out photos are rare. On the plus side, if we can produce them, great fish portraits will really mark our work out. Photographing moving fish puts a lot of emphasis on autofocus performance, especially those like anthias that seem to dance constantly and erratically. Add to this the lower light levels and the low contrast of the underwater world and you have one of the toughest autofocus challenges in any branch of photography. If you are a compact shooter, this is probably the discipline that your gear has the biggest performance gap to others. Fortunately, if you target slow or nonmoving species then this difference in eliminated. The latest mirrorless cameras have excellent autofocus, and the top models now have eye-tracking focus, which could prove revolutionary underwater. I have not had a chance to try it myself, yet. On SLRs the best mode is the tracking focus used by sports photographers, although the movements of fish are a little less predictable! Lighting choices are reasonably simple. Most underwater photographers favour two strobes in classic 9 o’clock and 3 o’clock positions for fish portraits. Unlike human portraits, where a photographer might look to use uneven lighting to create shadows and emphasize the features of their sitter, most fish are streamlined and lack the lumps and bumps to be brought out by this technique. Even lighting is usually best to reveal their colours and details. But in muck-diving destinations there are a plethora of gargoylian species, like frogfish and stonefish that should be celebrated ‘warts and all’ with uneven lighting. It is less fashionable these days, but in the past many photographers preferred the look of single strobe for fish portraits, arguing that the small drop shadow created both helped the fish stand out from the background and created a more three-dimensional look. These days shallow depth of field is the trendier way to separation, where the limited focus makes the subject pop out from its surroundings. Finding the right fish or situation is also key. Shooting anthias in the Red Sea, I target them on shallow easy dives, rather than in a howling current on an oceanic wall. I really like the local sites around Sharm for this, such as Temple, as the fish here see training divers everyday, so when we are quiet and still we easily win them over. A mild

current is ideal as this will line up the fish and if we position ourselves slightly up current then the fish will swim towards our lens. Special shots come most readily when we meet a scaly supermodel, which is a particularly friendly fish that just wants to pose. Examples from my last week’s diving include a territorial lionfish that kept charging my camera, a farming sohal surgeonfish on the wreck that wanted to keep me off its veg, and an amorous yellow boxfish that was swimming right up to divers’ masks, fuelled by hormones and the desire to find a female. Whatever the cause, a fish that will repeatedly pose is an opportunity never to pass up. Fortunately, and especially so here in the Red Sea, many fish are incredibly beautiful and need only be shot in a simple id-style to create a visual feast. The veteran fishsnapper Roger Steene, whose photos fill many of the staple identification books, was the master of this approach. Although some are condescending to this ID style, Steene’s best images demonstrate how aesthetic the simple celebration of nature’s beauty can be. However, when we want our images to reach beyond the converted, then our focus must shift to character. The golden rule here is strong eye contact, which peaks when we bend our back and get right down to the eye level of the subject. You’ll know instantly when you get strong eye contact, and if you have to ask whether a photo has eye contact - then it doesn’t! Some fish species have forward facing eyes and we should try and photograph the species from head on. This naturally arranges the fish’s features with their eyes, above a nose, above a mouth, forming a recognizable face.

Once the viewer can see a face they won’t see a fish! Instead, they will see an individual they can relate to and will project character, emotion, or personality onto the subject. Even when it isn’t there! You may already have a fish photo where people say the subject looks grumpy, surprised, or curious. This is exactly what you want; it means your subject has transcended being a scaly, slimy fish and has become a character. Memorable fish portraits are not about really about photographing fish, but photographing faces. n