SOUTH PACIFIC DIVERS CLUB

PERSONAL PROFILE

Grey McNeil: Club Photographic Officer

Where I am living now is the furthest I have lived from the sea in my life, even though its only about 25 kilometres. I have always loved the ocean and rivers and have a couple of brothers who own trawlers and cray fish boats.

My biggest regret is that I didn’t start diving when I was 15 or so. Half the guys where I was an apprentice dived every weekend but I was too interested in wine, woman and song. Actually that’s wrong, it was cars, beer and girls in that order!!

My first dive was one of those introductory resort dives where they put you in the pool for 2 hours and get you to take your mask of and on 14 times and tell you that you will die if you don’t breathe properly and you must hold the instructors hand, (which I wouldn’t have minded except I got stuck with this bloke who looked like godzilla, instead of the good looking bird!)

Eventually they took us out for a dive and I was hooked. When we got back to Sydney my wife Vivienne and I signed up for the open water course. Since then we have done all the usual courses, advanced, deep, wreck, rescue, medic first aid, photographic, master scuba and more recently Nitrox. I try and average 100-120 dives a year although this year has been so busy I am way behind.

In 1994 we went to Vanuatu and a friend insisted I take his camera (a Nikonos IV) I didn’t want to as they were so expensive and I had never used one, but he talked me into it and gave me a 5 minute rundown on how to use it. This consisted of “put this bit here, clean this, make sure this is shut or the water gets in and put the film in here”. I managed to get it back without flooding it, amazing!!

I had the first two rolls developed over there to see what they were like and they came back totally black!! Apparently you have to put the film UNDER the little shutter cover, not OVER!! Never mind. After this minor set back I managed to get some photos with colour on them and when I saw them I knew I had to have an underwater camera.

For me, to be able to capture underwater life on film and show it to people who have no idea what it is really like down there, is a never ending source of wonder. Mind you being able to show them a clear photo that is in focus as well is something entirely different. I still keep a couple of photos from my first few rolls to remind me of just how bad they were!!

We have dived up and down the East Coast of Australia, New Guinea, Lord Howe Island, Vanuatu, Solomon’s, Borneo, and the Maldives, and the variety of species is mind-boggling.

I love macro work, especially Nudibranchs. These little critters have the biggest range of colour combinations imaginable, almost as if Picasso and Ken Done have a love child that has been let loose in the Dulux factory!!

One of the good things about doing underwater photography is that it slows you down and makes you look, and that is when you really start to find and see things, instead of going 20 kilometres an hour and seeing nothing.

The satisfaction of getting a picture right is a great buzz when you get your slides developed especially wide angle and some of those rarer fish shots when everything happens so fast.

I use a couple of old Nikonos IV’s and a Nikonos V with Nikonos 105 strobes and Ultra Light arms, macro tubes, a 17 mm Sea & Sea wide angle with Fuji Sensia 100 and a  bit of Velvia 50. Getting close ups of fish etc is hard going without a housed camera but it certainly makes you control your breathing and bouancy in a hurry.

Viv has got the shutter bug in the last couple of years, and is starting to take some nice shots (I think she has become sick of being a camera carrier for me) so now there is a fight for cameras and film!!

Diving is something we both enjoy and it has taken us to places we wouldn’t have even thought of going other wise. I was lucky enough to win a dry suit in this years Jervis Bay photo shootout and that combined with Nitrox seems to be spot on for doing photography especially the longer bottom time.

The problem being that “she who must be obeyed” now want s one, oh well!!

My favourite Australian dive places would probably be Fly Point at Nelson Bay and Jervis Bay, especially the Docks and staying onboard Ocean Trek.

Diving isn’t something I can see myself giving up at all, so in the next 10-20 years when you see a bent over grey haired old codger struggling with his gear, give him a hand will you ‘cause it might be me!!

I have included a few photos of  different things ,hope you like them.

Grey McNeil

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