A day in the life of.....an underwater videographer!

As my time away has progressed, I've found myself in some interesting and unexpected places. Including, Hawaiit where I worked as an underwater photographer for a dive company. I have shamelessly stolen this blog idea from someone else, however I thought it such a good way to share what is my passion, but also hard work, so here’s an insight into my daily life:

6:00 I am woken up, currently to the sounds of a twinkly bell sound alarm on my phone and I blearily open my eyes.

6:10 I am woken up again by the second alarm, this time with a more jarring alarm bell and I clothe myself, find my camera and spare batteries , ensure an empty memory card is in the camera and pack up my dive bag for the day.

6:30 make myself a nice package of porridge, shove that down quickly and help pack up the car ready for the day.

6:50 Get in the car and we go to pick up our customers for the day. It’s always fun meeting customers, finding out where they’re from, why they’ve chosen this place for their holiday and more importantly how excited they are about diving. Sometimes it’s first time divers doing DSDs so they’re excited and apprehensive at the same time. For others, they’ve been diving a long time and we talk about the different places they’ve been diving and what it’s going to be like here.

7:30 we arrive first to the dive sites, and whilst Mike starts going through the paperwork with the customers, I quickly set up my gear stuggle slip into my wetsuit and start taking location shots.

8:00 having giggled whilst filming people jump around whilst putting on wetsuits and getting their gear ready we head down to the water. All our regular dive sites are shore dives, so I waddle as fast as possible ahead of them to film them coming past and then off into the water.

I am the first one down into the water, I try and take a quick video of them at the surface, then as I go down catch a shot of the sun as the water covers the lens. Once under, I film the customers as they descend into the underwater world!

8:45 The dives are fantastic today. The water is crystal clear, and there are turtles everywhere! As a videographer I try to remember that as much as I would love to film that awesome frog fish I have seen over to the side, the customer is waaaay more excited about the turtles – if the turtles are near enough to the group I always try to get shots of customer and turtle. It's always the first question a customer asks when they come up to the surface, "did you get a picture of me and that turtle!?!?!” The divers today are super fun and are playing around with me and posing as well. Not only does it make for a better video, but it makes a better dive for us all when we can laugh and joke together!

The second dive is just as magical as the first and honestly, I’ve got plenty of footage so now it’s all about taking any awesome last shots. Just as we are coming up – a turtle ninja attacks from behind the groups head and I manage one last photo! Bingo!!

12:00 After finishing our dives, we take the thoroughly satisfied, grinning and exhausted guests back to their hotels. But our work isn’t finished yet. We take the tanks to the filling station, and then go and wash all the gear before taking it to the storage unit to dry. Now for my real work to begin! We had back to the house where my laptop is waiting to edit the film.

1:00 I make a quick can of soup for lunch (mmmm Amy’s gluten free low sodium lentil and vegetable soup). I surreptitiously add in some extra salt whilst it’s cooking to give it some more flavour (hey I’m Scottish afterall) and start transferring all my footage from the camera  onto the computer.

Yes, this is my 'after dive/sunburnt/i haven't put make up on/brushed/washed my hair in weeks ' face

3.55 With a couple of computer issues (and the bribing of my computer with a glass of wine) I have finished editing the video and send it to export (make it dvd ready) which will take about an hour.  Due to the turnaround time, of having to show the video at 6pm, I have to trust in my editing and video technique as there won’t be time to watch and correct it again afterwards! In the meantime,  I take some stills from the video, have a shower, make a cup of tea and have a quick doze.

5:00 The video has finished rendering, and I have the stills ready I burn both to discs and get ready to take them off for a video showing with the guests at their hotel.

6:00 With everyone with a drink in their hand, we sit down in a corner of the bar with a wide screen tv. As the opening credits start the couple are excited to see how their video came out. From the opening shot they are grinning and laughing. EXCELLENT! We joke through the video, I sometimes cringe at editing shots where I've missed a transition or something could have been a bit smoother – but the customers don’t notice and by the end are beyond delighted by the whole thing. The moment they saw the shot of them and the turtle they yell “we gotta have this”.

Normally at the end of the video would come the awkward sales pitch. I find it difficult to get my head around the fact that this is my job now, and that someone will pay me for diving and filming them. I was embarrassed to begin with, but when you realise the time and care that goes into creating the video, and that without a sale I won’t be able to eat – then you have to get over that. Fortunately, they love it, and can’t stop saying how much they've enjoyed the experience.

7:30 I am home again, recharging the batteries and checking the camera o-rings ready for another day of diving tomorrow. I cook some dinner, and sit down with a drink and watch some tv, unwinding after a long day

9:00 I’m exhausted! I get ready for bed, put on a David Attenborough documentary in the background and nod off to sleep ready for another early day tomorrow!