Since learning to dive at age 14 and becoming qualified as an Advanced Cave diver at 21, Liz Rogers has taken underwater photographs in caves across Australia. Red Bull Illume caught up with the 2013 finalist to discuss the challenges of underwater cave diving photography and how she captured her Top 250 shot.
Shooting underwater can be rather tricky with off-camera lighting: “Cave photography succeeds when you set up enough lights to show off the space (or lack of space). The ‘dry cavers’ have an advantage here as they can use infrared or wireless triggers to set off their off-camera strobes. However, these signals are very limited when traveling through water, so underwater cave divers usually use the flash from their on-camera strobes to trigger background strobes,” says Rogers.
However, this causes limitations: “As such, a lot of underwater cave photography has a well-lit foreground which gets brighter as the cave gets bigger – the foreground light is necessary to trigger the background strobes. This is necessary, but not fun, as it definitely reduces the artistic possibilities.”
Rogers decided to take a different route when shooting her Top 250 winner: “My shot was taken in the huge underwater tunnels of Weebubbie Cave. The water is ridiculously clear but it still absorbs the light and makes triggering distant strobes tricky, so on this trip we decided to try a new approach,” says Rogers.
“Instead of using the camera to start the strobe chain reaction, the strobes were manually triggered. Myself and my dive buddy Stefan got into approximately the right positions in the water, I opened the shutter, and Stefan triggered the off-camera strobes manually. The catch was that there could be no other light – so no dive lights allowed,” she explains.
“When you turn off all the lights in a cave, it gets really dark. I couldn’t see Stefan, he couldn’t see me, and neither of us could see the walls. This approach took a little bit of practise! On the third dive we nailed it (without swimming into any rocks)… I’m very proud to see this image among so many stunning shots!” says Rogers.
Be sure to check out Rogers’ site.
Cave Diving Photography with Liz Rogers
Cave Diving Photography with Liz Rogers
