maldives in mono

Oh the joys of vscocam - you can kill a lot of time messing on your phone with the various editing tools and filters, and one very free afternoon I discovered that making my underwater photos black and white revealed a lot more detail than the originals in colour. The iPhone camera is not that impressive to begin with (I am using the 4s) and the general "blueness" of being underwater tends to make photos very one-dimensional (professionals and enthusiasts often use red or magenta filters plus elaborate light set-ups to bring out the colours of the marine world). So it was a nice surprise to see how my photos transformed in black-and-white.

You might wonder what's the point of diving in a tropical paradise like the Maldives only to leach the glorious colours out of the pictures. But the marine world is about so much more than colour - light and shadow brings out the richness, the sense of drama and the depth that makes diving such a fascinating activity for me.

(Some of these are screen captures from my videos and some were taken at night.)