Photography, Scuba Trips, Great Friends and 2008

Depending on how long you've been a photographer, you should be able to spot five people from the industry.

When I first got certified a good friend told me that scuba diving wasn't a hobby, but a sickness! I didn't think about it until years later when looking back I started to count the dozens of trips and hundreds of dives I'd done. Diving becomes an obsession, but it's not just about being in the water, but time with great friends. Each trip was like a reunion filled with memories, laughs and fish stories that rival anything fishermen have to crow about.

The group above all hit Utila in Honduras to dive with whale sharks in 2008. It was an amazing trip - great friends, big fish and new memories daily. It was the epitome of everything you want a dive trip to be. Although not until we were leaving die we learn just how good it was.

No big lines at this airport! And when it comes to baggage claim - what you see is what you get!

Typical of dive resorts, everyone typically books their trips on a Saturday to Saturday schedule. That means everyone who arrives on Saturday, from all over the world, sees each other at departure a week later. Well, for all of us, we were the only group to see and get time with the whale sharks. Everyone else, although the diving was excellent, never spotted one of the big guys!

You get to meet each other as your praying for all your bags to arrive. There's nothing worse than losing a bag with your gear and having to delay a great trip because you're waiting for the airlines to figure out what happened. Just the joy of seeing your gear in a pile on the runway is an adrenaline rush!

And for those of you non-divers who think the world of scuba is filled with luxury hotels, beautiful yachts and upscale accommodations think again! But the more rustic the "resort," the more laughs and memories! Just the bathroom in our room was enough of a memory-maker to contribute to the stories of the trip!

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One of the benefits of booking a group trip like this is our strength in numbers. On every dive we "owned" the boat which gave the captain the flexibility to do whatever we wanted, which included a couple of night dives along with working hard to spot the critters we'd come most to see, the whale sharks.

The other day while looking through a backup drive from my old computer I found all of these images. The whale shark was captured by one of the other divers, and while it won't win any awards, it won hands down in memories.

The little guy below was on a night dive. I was shooting with an inexpensive FUJI point and shoot in a small underwater housing. If you're not aware of what happens on a night dive - it's pretty amazing. You see virtually no colors in any of the coral, sponges and plant life during daylight, but bring in any artificial light like the flash on your camera or an underwater flashlight and the world lights up with color. There's no manipulation in the color of the coral this spotted eel was hiding under.

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While I often suggest you use Throwback Thursday as a marketing tool to plant a few seeds about the need for updated family portraits for your clients, it's also perfect to help you take a break. Under the day in day out stress of running a business, sometimes it's pure relaxation to step away and take that trip down Memory Lane.

Happy Throwback Thursday!