029: Erin Quigley of "Go Ask Erin" Teaches Underwater Photographers Post Processing

Erin Quigley is known for helping underwater photographers all around the world improve their post processing skills through courses, webcasts and workshops on "Go Ask Erin".   But, she has a fascinating past starting out in theater and hollywood before she even became a diver. 

Erin tells us some amazing stories about her need to get away from the demanding set of a TV show actually was the catalyst to transitioning into underwater photography education. 

In addition to talking about all of the cool offerings available, Erin has some great tips for new underwater photographers, and of course we geek out about all things PhotoShop and Lightroom, and have tons of laughs all along the way.

Watch The Chat On YouTube:
https://youtu.be/iowK1508OY4

Free Resources: 
Check out Erin's keyboard shortcuts and recommended lightroom folder structure here.

Social Media:
"Go Ask Erin"
Website: https://www.goaskerin.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoAskErin

Erin's Quigley's Personal Pages:
Facebook - https://twitter.com/erinbaby
Twitter: https://twitter.com/erinbaby
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sugarqb/


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Transcript

Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:00

So I get in a cage, goes down, the fing shark gets into the cage. I can't believe it! I can't believe it! It's a good how is how can this happen?

Todd 0:19

Welcome to the Aquatic Life, a podcast about diving underwater photography and adventure travel. I'm Todd Reimer, and with me as always is Dalton Ham. And today we have Aaron Quigley of Go Ask Aaron here with all of your post-processing questions being answered. And if you heard from the intro, a lot of just fun stories. She is a hoot. This is a great uh chat with Aaron. Guys, enjoy it. Let's just get right into it. Have a blast and go check out goasked Aaron.com. Check out our interview, guys. Here we go.

unknown 1:06

Hey! Hey!

SPEAKER_02 1:08

It's nice to meet you.

unknown 1:11

Hey! So good to see you.

Todd 1:14

Everyone, let's welcome Aaron Quigley to the show. Hey Aaron, how's it going? Hey good.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Thank you guys so much for having me on. I'm excited. Yeah.

Todd 1:26

Yeah, exactly. We're three of us are all zoom in remote and we're all in SoCal at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Safely in SoCal. Safely in SoCal.

SPEAKER_04 1:35

Exactly. Which means we'll actually have to meet in person at some time.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Yes, yes. When that returns to our lives.

SPEAKER_04 1:41

Yeah, right. When we're allowed out.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

When the zombie apocalypse passes.

Todd 1:47

Oh man. Yes. Let's not get into that. Let's talk about you, Aaron. Why don't you tell everyone uh a little bit about yourself for anyone that doesn't know how famous you are already? Oh my god, maybe a famous thing.

SPEAKER_04 2:01

Internet famous.

Intro To Erin Quigley and Go Ask Erin

Todd 2:02

Yeah, we've talked about you on uh on prior podcasts, but um for maybe our new listeners, maybe tell us who you are and and what you do, and we'll we'll get into it from there.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Sure. I uh am an underwater photographer primarily. Uh, I've had a lot of different iterations. I think it's my last life. I'm just trying to smash everything in that I can do. But I am an underwater photographer. I I have been teaching post-production for underwater shooters for about the past 10 years or so. And uh traveling, uh, leading classes, teaching Lightroom and Photoshop boot camps. And because of COVID, one of the silver linings was all of a sudden I was at home with a lot of time on my hands and really uh wanted to do something uh online for people that was free, that everybody could join in from all over the world. So we started doing my my collaborators, uh Jan and Joel Penner of New Media Soup and I started doing Go Ask Aaron webinars online about Lightroom and Photoshop. So all post-production. And uh we started out by doing three a week because we thought we'd been doing it for about a month. And then as the months went by and we realized that uh we were gonna be doing it for quite a while. We've been doing two a week since then, but right now I think we're up to something like 80 live broadcasts. And uh also um initially we started thinking they would be an hour, but because as you're about to find out, I'm a uh chat chatterbug. They wind up being, you know, 90 minutes to uh two hours, but we have a little cocktail party before they go on in in the Zoom chat room. We've got a couple little drinking games we play. Oh, yeah, it's it's not your typical uh tech webinar, shall I say?

SPEAKER_04 3:51

It sounds like some of our podcasts. Some of our podcasts we we usually slate between 30 minutes and an hour, and they usually go whatever, whatever.

Todd 4:00

Yeah, it's too much fun. So, where so since you already mentioned if people want to check that out, where do they go to to find out?

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Goaskerin.com. We also have a Facebook page, so just look up Go Ask Erin on Facebook and it'll take to the Facebook page, and then we post all upcoming events there.

SPEAKER_04 4:16

Very cool. Now, can they ask questions to you on your uh Facebook page?

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Oh yes, yes, they can. But the way that it works is uh again, you know, what an evolution that process has been. I'm sure you guys have a similar one for your podcast, but you know, we started out with a a kind of a weird notion of how it would work, of course, completely abandoning the notion of any practicality. So, you know, the idea that you'd have many hundreds of people able to just ask you questions in a chat uh was a little bit impractical. So we decided overwhelming. Yeah, overwhelming. So uh our our sessions, we can't see any of the participants, we can't hear any of the participants, but everybody can write in on the chat a question. And if it can't be answered by the moderators by Jen and Joel Penner, um, or if it's something that they think is particularly apt, then usually at the end of the session there may be time for questions. Otherwise, if you send questions to admin at go ask Aaron, uh we try to answer them in the email if it's not too elaborate.

SPEAKER_04 5:19

Uh we've been talking about some of ours where we will let people ask questions on Facebook or or email them into us and then we'll answer them during our podcast.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Yeah, no, we do we do that too. We have uh two different kinds of live events, actually. Yeah. One you'd think of as kind of a more traditional webinar, for lack of a better word, uh, where I present a topic and we everybody knows what the topic is going to be. And then the other one we have is something that we've been calling an image clinic where people send me their images or send questions in advance. Uh, and that way I can organize the photos that I would need to demonstrate the questions, or I try to answer the questions using other people's images as uh we're editing. And then recently we kind of evolved that into something called techniques of the week. So it's a shorter version, uh, usually about half an hour, 40 minutes, where it might be one technique, it might be two, it might be stills, it might be video. Joel Penner is a video expert. So we we're mixing it up a little bit as time goes by.

SPEAKER_04 6:24

Sounds like a great way to embrace COVID and what it's what it's been.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

You know, people all of a sudden had time to edit their shitty pictures. Exactly right. It's uh me included, me included.

SPEAKER_04 6:38

Oh, absolutely. We're we're right there with you. It's uh that's kind of like our podcast. Todd and I had talked about it for you know at least a year, but we never had time. And then all of a sudden we have an abundance of time, and we're like, no, let's give this rolling.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Yeah, this has been a pipe dream of mine for a long time. So I'm really lucky to have hooked up with some great partners.

SPEAKER_04 6:59

Yeah, that's awesome. And congratulations on getting it started. That's that's fantastic.

Todd 7:03

So did these webinar webinars started then, but how long has Go Ask Erin been around?

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Go Ask Erin has been around since 2008 or nine, I think a long time.

Broadway and Hollywood Background

Todd 7:17

Yeah, so to the newer listeners, even though this new wrinkle and go if go ask Aaron is there, the Go Ask Erin website has a ton of uh fantastic information, classes, as she mentioned, workshops and things like that. And we'll get into it. But I want to kind of take a step back, Erin, and kind of learn more about you and how you got into underwater photography. Because if you go to her about page and learn about her, like Erin's background is fascinating. And I told her when we chatted earlier, like we could have several conversations that have nothing to do with underwater photography just based on her background. So I have to at least mention the first thing that popped out as me is you started out in Broadway, actually. Uh, tell everyone about your how you started off doing costume design work in Broadway and then in LA and give us a little bit about that history because I I think it's fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Yes. Well, um I started out um in the theater actually as a costume designer. I was the uh resident costume designer for Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago for many years, and I was lucky enough to do all their shows. Now, if you're not hip to Steppenwolf Theater, the ensemble contains people like Gary Sinise, John Malkovich, Joan Allen, Gary Cole, Lori Metcalfe. It's it's Billy Peterson, you know, it's kind of a long list of uh luminaries. And so I started out designing costumes for them, and a couple of their shows went to New York, went to Broadway, and I went with them. So I have two Tony nominations actually for my work on Broadway. And then what's broadway the shows? Uh Song of Jacob Zulu and Grapes of Wrath. Very cool. Grapes of Wrath. So and then Gary Sinise, who is an ensemble member, did a movie in Iowa. I think it was with Richard Gere and Kevin Anderson, and it came to be known as oh my god, I can't remember. It started out being called the Farm of the Year. I'll think of it later. But it's about two brothers who's have inherited their family farm, uh, but uh the bank forecloses on it, and instead of letting the bank get it, they burn it to the ground. Anyway, long story short, as one does. As one does, as one does. Um, so I started doing movies from there and got a little bit of camera training outside of live theater. And then I was in um Vermont doing Summerstock, I think it was production of A Little Night Music, which is this giant Sondheim musical. And I got a call from Laurie Metcalfe saying, You want a job because Roseanne just fired everybody on the pilot and uh get out here. So I was like, okay, I'll be there. So I kind of I had no money, I like owed all kinds of student loan debt. I was like, damn it, I'm just gonna get out there. I got out there and uh got the job on the Roseanne show, and I did that for 10 years. So I did it for the entire series basically, besides a little bit at the beginning uh before everybody got fired, before the first bloodbath. And uh, but I was there for many bloodbaths, and um we used to joke that uh I, you know, we saw 300 writers coming up. It was literally 300 writers over those 10 years that came and went. So we never actually um learned their names because they were kind of like farm animals, you know, you need to be slaughtered for dinner, you kind of didn't want to get too involved. So anyway, so yeah, so I have a background in in theater and television and movies, and then what happened was it's can I cuss?

Todd 10:48

Yes, please.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

It's fucking stressful. And you just eventually hate everybody. So I needed to uh after the Roseanne show ended, um, Lori Metcalf and I got picked up by 20th Century Fox for our uh a contract to do our own little production company where we would develop content loosely you know targeted for Lori to star in, but also just content that interested us in television. And so we did that for I want to say six years with 20th Century Fox, and then another, I don't know, four or five years with Warner Brothers television. So I was basically a producer, uh or um yeah, I guess producer is the best way to describe it, although that's such a generic term, I kind of hesitate to use it. But I basically worked with writers uh to develop content, and then after that, I really did hate everybody, and so I decided that I would take a year off. Okay. And during that period of time, I had been diving whenever I could. I I started diving uh back in the Roseanne days because I needed to go somewhere where no one could talk to me. Talk to you, and I needed them to know I could not be reached because you know you're you're when you work on a show like that, and multi-camera television is very, very stressful for the technical people uh because you you're you never know what's gonna hit you and you have to have it immediately. So I had like three pagers at the time, and um, you know, I'd be driving through the canyon out here, and one of them would go off, and I'd like have to frantically find a phone booth because nobody had cell phones, and I it was making me sick. I mean, I was just totally stressed out. So I had always um lived near the water, loved being near the water. I grew up sailing and I was a junior lifeguard and all that. And so I thought I just need to go underwater, and I did, and I started doing it more and more and more, and all the hiatuses I would go, and it just happened to be at a time on the planet when analog was changing to digital. And I was kind of a computer nerd um to begin with and had Photoshop chops from design. I used it to work with my own um designs, and so I'd be on a live board, and people who had been used to the waiting for the light table to come out to look at their slides were now staring horrified into the screens of their 17-inch MacBooks, not understanding what resolution meant or the first thing about how they could even look at their pictures, you know, in the same evaluative way that they had with an actual slide. So I found myself being called on to help people. And I love help people. I love teachers, I come from a long line of teachers. And um, the company that I traveled with mostly then, I still do now, Backscatter. I traveled with them because they were, well, a few reasons. One, they always had extra shit if mine broke. So I knew that I would I would have that. But secondly, because um they were so generous with their know-how. And I had traveled with pros before who it was clear you were just traveling with them to pay for their trip. And it just pissed me off. You know, it was like, really? Why am I paying extra to be on this trip when you're such a dick? So, you know, and and not even and no, no education, no nothing, no help, nothing except attitude and crit criticism and backscatter was so great, just always so generous. And that was kind of what I wanted to do. I just like want to tell people everything I could to make their pictures look better. So I at one point, you know, Berkeley was just like, hey, can you do this? Like more than just casually. And yeah. So so it kind of evolved into that. And the whole go ask Aaron uh thing came about because at one of our digital shootouts, which we uh have done annually for a long time, they set me up in a little closet, really literally the janitor's closet at the resort that they had cleaned out to make room for me. And there was like a long line that went outside into the common area of people with shitty pictures, you know, wanting me to help so they could enter them in the contest. And whatever questions came up to the other very excellent shooters and and very professional people to shoot out, they didn't want to answer it or didn't know the answer, but basically mostly didn't want to answer it. They just say go ask Aaron. So someone posted a like a handwritten sign above the janitor's closet that said go ask Aaron. That's awesome. And uh kind of caught on. I thought, oh, maybe, maybe I can just go to it. Yeah, has a catchy.

Todd 15:27

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

That's catchy.

SPEAKER_02 15:29

Go ask Aaron was born. Yeah, that's it.

Todd 15:32

And which uh which Liverboard, do you remember which uh outing that was that was at when that happened?

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Well, that was at a digital shootout in Lil Cayman. So in Little Cayman. That yeah, but the the the whole I the one image I have in mind if that's like uh the genesis to me, or or the real kind of um missing link in the evolution between analog and digital was on a trip to I think it was Komodo on the old uh Caro with the old Cararu cruises on like the um C Safari or something like that. I just remember there was this long table in the galley, and everybody had these laptops. And I just remember the light from the laptops instead of the light from the light tables. And I just looked at and I thought, okay, it's changed. There wasn't a single person without a laptop, there wasn't a single person who was getting, you know, their e6 done. It was like I I knew it was it was gone forever. Sorry, Chris Newbert.

SPEAKER_04 16:35

So where did you uh where did you learn how to dive?

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Here in LA or I learned how to dive here in LA. I did my first hundred dives in Southern California, almost all be I mean a lot of beach diving. I I did those first hundred dives pretty much before I had a camera in my hands. And so, you know, roundabout dive 87, as I'm just drawing tic-tac-toe in the sand, every time I get swept this way and then swept that way, and that's all I can see. I thought, I thought again, there's something else has got to start going on here. So I asked a friend of mine uh which camera they would buy if they were starting out and they gave me a good recommendation, the Nakonis RS, which I had very happily for many years. I still have it, it's paperweight now, but it's a lovely paperweight with good memories. Um and uh yeah, so that's how it started. And then that was really the needle in my vein because that just became something that I couldn't get bored with. It was so dynamic, it was constantly changing. You know, if it wasn't the gear itself that was changing, my kind of goals changed and the environments were always changing, and the social circumstances of traveling and diving were always changing. So I I just became enamored of it. Also, I feel like even back then, I mean, now more than then, but I feel like the marine environment is so fragile and in need of stewardship and protection. Yeah. And a lot of people don't dive, right? So the only thing they get to see is either shark weak or, you know, images that other people bring up from the depths. And I I kept thinking, wow, if people just have more compelling images, it's gonna help to create that sense of stewardship and responsibility of this really fragile environment. So that was also a motivator for me.

SPEAKER_04 18:24

And yeah, you gotta you gotta give people a connection to make them love it. Exactly. They'll take care of what they like.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Exactly. And I think your word is the best connection, you know, just to create a connection uh between the underwater environment and people who aren't lucky enough to visit there.

SPEAKER_02 18:41

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 18:41

Right.

unknown 18:42

Totally.

SPEAKER_04 18:43

I mean, there there are those of us, I mean, like yourself, you know, you you grew up uh sailing, being a lifeguard around the water, and uh I grew up in South Florida, uh, around the ocean, fishing, surfing, swimming, and all that good stuff. And you have an appreciation for it, but my appreciation never went below the surface until I started diving. Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Yeah, and it's a I think it's it's a paradigm shift, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 19:09

Yeah, and I think it's that way with a lot of people, is that the majority of people only see the surface of the and the surface looks pretty darn good. So the ocean must be in great shape.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Exactly. Well, oh, and the fish is delicious that I buy at Gelsings or wherever is fine. What are you talking about? There's plenty of it. There might be a shortage of toilet paper, but fish, not an issue.

Todd 19:32

Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 19:33

Right. And and it's so there's a lot of of things that people don't realize and don't know. And so I think it's uh definitely you're on the right track with you know we bring photos to people to to give them a connection and and hopefully they'll find something that they love out of it. And you know, like I said, you know, you take care of the things that you love.

Becoming A.C.E. Certifed

SPEAKER_01 19:54

So yeah, and additionally, the thing that I found about I found that people really get energy from being creative. And post-production gives them a way to connect with their own work, you know, not just link it outside, but in a way that's really personal and energizing. And you know, if you're frustrated doing something like underwater photography, if you have a camera, you can't ever get a sharp picture, or you can't ever get a picture that's not totally full of backscatter, you you get less and less interested in doing it because it just seems like so much work. Or because digital cameras now capture so many images, you find yourself totally under overwhelmed with the amount of images you bring home from a trip. So, you know, I started thinking about well, how can I get people past that barrier where technology is a roadblock to creativity, you know, and instead, how can I make it so that they they really see it as the tool and also as the creative outlet that I do? So that that's also been a you know a big motivator for me.

SPEAKER_04 20:59

We saw that you are uh ace certified as well, right? For uh Photoshop and Live.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Yes, I am ACE certified. That's right. That's the uh for those that don't know, that's the Adobe formal certification that you have to that you have to get if you want some kind of um legitimacy. I felt, not to say people that aren't ace certified aren't legitimate. I'm not saying that at all, but you know, based on my history that I already griped about earlier about traveling with pros who, you know, pretended they were gonna help you with post or whatever, and really they didn't know they, you know, they knew what they had monkeyed around with and figured out for their image, but they didn't really know how to tell you anything. I I thought it would be nice if you know people who were taking post production in particular, um, post production workshops knew that I had some kind of legitimacy in that world, not just as a photographer.

SPEAKER_04 21:53

Right. You that you've been recognized by the people who make the software that they want to use, right?

SPEAKER_01 21:58

And by the way, I don't know if you know anything. The process of becoming an Adobe certified expert. But it's not easy. Because you have to not only know parts, you know, Lightroom and Photoshop are ridiculously deep programs. I as a as an expert, I would say that I maybe know, oh gosh, 30% of what they together can do. More of Lightroom, but less, you know, 30% of Photoshop is probably pushing the limits. Because Photoshop has 3D rendering, it has scientific. I mean, it's crazy deep.

SPEAKER_04 22:36

And it's and it's not just that. Oh, always, always, always. If there's something you want to do, if there's a goal you want to achieve, I I'm I'm sure the you know you could tell someone 10 different ways to do it.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

Yeah, and I think you're getting the fluency as an editor really depends on how many tricks you have in your bag of tricks.

SPEAKER_02 23:01

Oh, yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

So that you can try one not working, okay. This try next one, okay, not working this. So the thing about um the Adobe certification is I liken it to like, like, my driver's license is expired, and I'm actually gonna have to take the written test. I have to go look and see, you know, how much the baby weighs before it can ride in the front seat. Sh I'm never gonna use. And that's kind of like taking the Adobe certification. You have to learn all kinds of crazy stuff you're never gonna use. And then to take the test, it's also a proctored exam. Yeah, it is. You go to a certified um center, you're on camera, you're alone in a room, they take your cell phone and all your stuff, you get a pencil they give you, you know, and you have a time limit. It's it's it's like the SAT.

SPEAKER_04 23:50

Yeah, and it's not and it's not like you're sitting down in front of a computer doing the work. No computer, no test. You're taking a pencil and paper test.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Yes, it is multiple choice with a few fill-in the answers. Yeah.

Todd 24:03

Yeah. It's it's like very similar to Dalton I uh a few years ago when we had to get our uh drone certification, right? It's it's very technical, and 90% of the stuff they ask you has no relevance to like you're not gonna be flying airplanes. Like it's it's it's a pilot's exam, but you still have to know this stuff just to be qualified and get that certification, but it still gives you some legitimacy. If you're overprepared for anything, you know you're gonna be able to handle the 80% of questions that most people come up with.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

So yeah, I you know, not to jump too far astray, but also the FSC, the firearm safety certificate that you take. If you want to buy a handgun or be eligible to do that, you have to know about shotguns, rifles, all different kinds of stuff you're never gonna know about, but you need it to pass the test. So all of these certifications are r really, you know, broad. Yeah. But it doesn't hurt you to know the other stuff. It's just you're gonna forget it in two and a half seconds after you take the test because you don't use it.

Todd 25:05

And it's like anything else where you know you have the mainstream that everyone knows how to do X, but then every once in a while you know some random thing and some weird question gets asked. And it's like, oh, I wonder if this random topic I learned that had nothing to do with it might be able to apply.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Yes, the crypt of useless knowledge. Exactly.

Todd 25:22

Every once in a while it's something creeps out of it.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

I wonder what that useless knowledge, what that space is taking up. Yeah. You know, it's like, how many times has Jah been married? Oh, 37. Wait, E equals M C. Why do I exactly need to know that one?

SPEAKER_04 25:38

Exactly. It's exactly right. Some of the things we remember, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Exactly. I wish you could selectively forget to make space. Right. It's kind of like I do with my Facebook page. So just go through and cull.

Todd 25:52

So getting back to go ask Aaron, so you've got classes that uh already pre-recorded that people can download for the getting started.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

Yeah, so if you go to the webpage, there are some um written tutorials that are free that are that cover a lot of the information. Um there are, I think, more than 30 of those that you can just click on and download and print out and do whatever you want to with. And then now we have 30, about to be 32 if I get my act together soon, um, uh on-demand videos. Those are the 90 minute to two-hour videos that are recordings of our live sessions. So the way that we work is if you tune in live for the session, it's totally free. If you want to be able to listen to that session or work along with the session, because um on the on-demand sessions, we give you everything I work with. If I work with my own raw photos, I give you those raw photos so that you can work exactly along with me. So those are our COVID-19 price of 19 bucks each. So yeah, we sell the on-demand ones after we've um given the free online session. And we, I think there's yeah, 30 of those right now.

Todd 27:06

COVID aside, usually you you guys uh offering tours and workshops too, I believe. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 27:11

Yeah, so I do uh a few different kinds of travel-related things. Um, one is uh like an expedition trip. Typically, those are to someplace a little more challenging in terms of travel and diving. So it might be Galapagos, Cocos, you know, Komodo, someplace like that. Um, also typically on a on a live aboard. And those are less structured in terms of classes. It's really dive, dive, dive. And then when you come up and people are reviewing their images, I'm there to help them either with shooting skills or with post-production on a more one-on-one basis. And then there's a workshop trip in which the diving is also prioritized, but we have a structure of shorter classes to support the diving. So, in other words, we might give you an assignment in the morning in the wide angle uh workshop. We might give you an assignment that you need to get a reef uh scenic with a diver in the background. And we'll give you a little class in the morning about how exactly to do that. And and typically we may have actually scouted out the setup and bring people in so that they can copy basically the technique of the images that we shot earlier. And then we have um then I have something called a boot camp, which is a weeklong hair raising, not for the faint of heart, fire hose of information about Lightroom or Photoshop. And um, those are, you know, a week long. There's a beginning one that's kind of zero to hero if you if you really don't know what you're doing or you're unsure and want to kind of um pump up your chops a little bit. And then we have a, I call it intermediate to advanced. What that really is is it brings in more Photoshop and spends less time on the logistical organizational side of the software, which with Lightroom is the big stumbling block for many people. So the beginning one is usually how do I make this work? How do I make my pictures look better? Awesome. The intermediate one is okay, I got that down. Now let's add a little dark arts and some sorcery. So that seems to be the most popular thing, even though nobody wants to admit it. But that's definitely what people like.

Todd 29:28

So I happen to be looking, let me see if I can share here. I happen to be looking on uh some of your albums.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

None of the ones where I'm flashing my chleys.

Todd 29:36

No, okay. Well, you know, the new Photoshop filters help out with it.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Liquify is a winner. Oh, yeah.

Cayman Spinning Slow ShutterPhoto

Todd 29:49

So one of those that popped out because uh this is a very famous Alex Mustard photo that is done, in my mind, better by Aaron Quigley in this shot. Uh that you did, I'm guessing, in the Caymans. Tell us about this particular workshop that uh you're at and what you guys were working on.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

Right. So um I had, yeah, I love Alex, it's great. And and I also love to take other people's workshops. Um so this is a technique, it's a slow shutter speed technique in which you have to basically block out all the light except what's going to hit the very top of your subject, and while the slow shutter speed is open, you spin the camera. And so the the light from the strobes is so fast that it will freeze whatever it hits. But as the light falls off, the subject will blur. So in this case, I kind of experimented by by trying to do it in camera and then by taking the raw footage, the raw uh just a still photo, and taking it into Photoshop and kind of experimenting with the techniques in Photoshop that give you um the same options. You know, there's some little difference, but I actually find the Photoshop one is a lot less frustrating. Um and a lot more controllable in terms of the results. But of course, it you know, it it's a different kind of skill. The skill to get it in camera is a is a whole different story and it does have a slightly different feel. But yeah, I this is this is what I um do if I'm at the end of a dive typically, or I can't find anything to shoot. I it it works on it at so many different subjects.

Todd 31:31

And for our listeners, again, the uh disclaimer that I put on all of our photographers' interviews, anytime we're referring to a photo, uh, if you happen to be using Overcast, it'll be on the chapter art. Otherwise, check out the show notes in the blog and we'll we'll have links or uh to the photos that we reference in any of our discussions here. So but yeah, I mean anything, this is great to talk about, you know, just as an example, like you may have send out on your workshops, hey guys, why don't you try this technique or that? You know, have strobes that where instead of the standard strobes facing out, I'm actually gonna take strobes and face them towards my head for some crazy reason.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Yeah, you know, as far out as they can go, pointing back at your face. That's how that's how this is lit.

Todd 32:14

Strobes way, way out. It's something that again, if you're just getting into lighting or photography, it's not something you think of. Like I just I focus I send my strobes at whatever I want to shoot, and then now I learn a little bit about backscatter, and the the strobes aren't forcing directly at the subject. And now now you're talking about all these other crazy fun techniques that you may learn during a workshop. Oh, yeah, my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

Then there are people who, you know, experts like Alex who really pioneer, you know, these techniques. And uh, you know, there's a uh dive guide uh called Dharma in uh Indonesia that in Bali, technically, that I work with uh also who just showed me the most amazing lighting techniques using crazy stuff like uh steel wool, you know, put behind the subject and lit with two different colors, and then you blur it out and you get this beautiful kind of disco uh effect for your newtibrank or you know, whatever it is. So I really respect the people that pioneer those techniques, and I'm more than happy to try and replicate them in post, and then I can teach you how to do it. If you've missed a shot, well, why not experiment with it and see if you can't make it into something else compelling?

SPEAKER_04 33:33

I think that's always been one of the uh the things for me is if you didn't get it done in camera, then it's not a photo. I'm like, you don't understand, people have been doing post-production long before Lightroom and Photoshop came out. Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

Yes, and I mean people um forget that when someone says, for instance, but what did it really look like underwater? What color really was it? Oh, well, do you mean before I lit it up with my YSD3 or before I lit it up with my torch? Or do you mean before I had the wide angle lens or the close-up lens with the diopters or the bug eye filter? Uh, do you mean holding it in my hand out of the air? What do you mean? It is an artistic expression. And it has always been that the tools available to the artist are legitimate. There's one I always put in this disclaimer, is totally illegitimate. You're the artist, right? You do whatever you want to do to make the picture look the way it is, but you can't lie about it. You have to be transparent and you have to play by other people's rules if you're in their arena. So if you're submitting something to a contest or to a newspaper, or even in some way, if you're selling it in a natural history gallery, you have to be transparent about what you composited, what you changed, and there's no shame in it. You know, the only shame is in doing it poorly or lying about it. Right.

SPEAKER_04 35:00

Well, that I think that's the big thing is the you know, you do it if you do it well, people question it is it did did they did they Photoshop that's a good thing? Oh, welcome to my world.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

Right. Like I'm ever going to be able to take a good picture in camera again and not have people just go, oh, that. Oh, she shopped that.

SPEAKER_02 35:20

Right.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

And it's terrible because you know, Photoshop to say something is photoshopped has become this very derogatory term. But actually, when you you think about uh you know, Ansel Adams and other people who were really masters in the dark room, they didn't take shit for doing that. It was amazing. You know, they became famous because of it. But now I feel I'll just be completely blunt with you about this because I know it's true. Um I feel like most of the people, not all, but most of the people who claim that if you don't get it in camera, it's not legitimate. They are saying that because they're terrified of not being able to do it in post, or B, they can't do it in post. They cannot simply do not understand computers, they cannot understand the software, they don't know how to make it work, and they're bitter, bitter, primarily old people.

SPEAKER_04 36:18

No, I I I agree I agree with you 95% of that. The only the only places I push back is so I shoot professional sports. Oh, okay. Okay. And so if you're so if you're shooting journalism, you can't really do any posts. Oh no, that that's my disclaimer. You have to be transparent. Exactly. Play right. And the and the other is so I I grew up in the days of film. I used to shoot for car magazines and stuff, and it was the the first guy I worked for, just Kip was one of the best bosses and mentors anyone could have, in my opinion. Um he he pushed get it right in camera, get it right in camera. But I think there's a difference between get it right in camera and not doing any post, right? So get it right in camera is you make sure you there's trash and just move the trash. I don't need to go back and Photoshop to remove trash or a trash can. You know, you set make sure your headlights are turned on, you know, if you're shooting a car. Sure. Just all these different things, you do those in camera to get the the photo right in camera. Yeah. But then you take it into post and do all your enhancements and everything like that.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

Absolutely. And I mean the fact of the matter is most images that come from digital cameras need a little bit of post, period. They need sharpening, they need color doesn't, period.

SPEAKER_04 37:38

So uh every every photo, I think, even back in film days, needed.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

There's a there's kind of a uh interesting symbiosis that I've noticed teaching this stuff over the years, too, is that if you don't get it right in camera and you consistently make the same mistakes and you have to fix it in post, what happens is as you get better in post, you get better as a photographer because you understand what makes the picture work artificially in post. And now all of a sudden the connection happens like, oh yeah, I gotta put a light here, not here, you know. Right. You start understanding. So there's a cool symbiosis that I see with uh my clients and my students that as they get better and more fluent as editors, I see the pictures coming out of their cameras improving too. Nobody's that I see, I mean, this is kind of a rookie move to take the picture for post in a lazy way. I mean, sometimes you take the picture of a post because you realize the dynamic range is too big for your camera and you you're never gonna get the picture of the sunball and the black frogfish, right?

SPEAKER_02 38:47

Right.

SPEAKER_01 38:47

So um, you know, you take you you shoot for post by taking multiple exposures, knowing that you're gonna composite them to get the image. But mostly really what happens is people, you know, aren't shooting like, oh, I'm gonna get this really shitty picture and take it in to Photoshop or Lightroom and spend nine hours and get back a ho-hum, slightly cleaned up version of the shitty picture.

SPEAKER_02 39:13

Right.

SPEAKER_01 39:13

Once they get into posts and they realize the limitations, because there are limitations, they start being better photographers. So it's it's you know, being getting better in posts improves your photography as well. Absolutely.

Todd 39:27

Where do you stand on tools outside like other post-processing tools outside of your standard Lightroom and Photoshop? Do you have anything else that's pretty common in your arsenal?

SPEAKER_01 39:37

So um, I do use a couple of plugins, but they're not primarily for uh visual differences. They're more to help me generate tools. So, for instance, I have a couple of panels that I really like that generate luminosity masks, which is otherwise a super tedious process uh and very sloppy, and then getting rid of all of them is a mess. So I have a couple panels that I use uh to generate that. One of them is from a guy called Greg Benz. He has a really good luminosity panel generator. Um, in terms of plugins like on one or you know, some of the other plugins, I have the advantage of you know being skilled in Photoshop. So a lot of them, I feel like, why do I have this other thing? I can do this in Photoshop. And there's a big difference. A lot of them do not maintain the raw data. So if you come in with a raw image and you generate it through one of these other uh plugins, a lot of the time what winds up is you you're you export a TIFF or you export a Photoshop document. You you have abandoned the raw photo at that point, unless you like, you know, resort to working with smart objects or some other more exotic workflow. And then again, I would ask the question, why?

unknown 40:52

Right.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

You know, is it really something that you can't do in post? Um, one of my favorites was uh, and now it's been uh it's I think it is part of the the Google Suite that they bought, but it was Silver Effects Pro, which was really a great plug-in for black and whites, not because you couldn't generate the same kind of monochrome in Photoshop, but because it gave you so many options and it was engineered just for that. So things that sharpen, things that enlarge, things that generate tools, um, very focused utilities are things I I use and and and approve of a lot. And you know, if you're someone who doesn't, you know, you don't like the subscription model of Adobe or whatever, you have some other reason, and that's why you're gonna, okay, get over yourself. It's here to stay, but you know, but you want to like be an outsider, be a renegade, and use this other software, great, you go. Whatever works for you, do it. But just understand that you know, Photoshop and Lightroom, they are the standards for professional photography. And so you're gonna have a lot more, a lot more resource um for those than you will for anything else. A lot more connection between other software suites than you will for any of the plugins.

SPEAKER_04 42:12

Yeah, they've they've been the gold standard for they they've earned that one for they've earned it.

Geeking out About The New PhotoShop Updates

SPEAKER_01 42:16

Yeah, years and years of oh my god, the latest, uh, the latest Photoshop thing uh just mind-blowing.

SPEAKER_04 42:25

Yeah, we were talking about that earlier.

SPEAKER_01 42:26

Oh my god. So the thing that um totally like kills it. For me, you know, the Lightroom, the color grading thing is okay. I think it's useful, but it's it's it takes a different, totally different approach.

Todd 42:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:39

The sky replacement in Photoshop, excuse me, the water replacement filter. It's crazy. Yeah, oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 42:49

Yeah, we were we were just talking about that. We were uh very happy that they finally put something like that in there. Xena uh Skylum Luminar had had started doing that, and we were like, Photoshop's gotta get on this.

SPEAKER_01 43:02

Yeah, and you know they've got an eye out for all that other specific stuff.

SPEAKER_02 43:08

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 43:09

But I mean, wow, wow, wow. So cool. So I did um on the last um online session, I did some examples of replacing like shitty blown-out sunballs with beautiful clear sunballs um because I have had a habit for a long time just because I do Photoshop. But if I see a beautiful scenario of just open water with light rays in a sunball, oh, I shoot the shit out of that. Yeah, because that's that's water, that's really good, rich material. If I am gonna bite the bullet and go to the dark side and composite, I want that stuff. And now I'm so glad. And I even have like a multi layered, I don't know, it has like 50 layers now of just divers in different colored water that I've taken pictures of, and it's like wow, I was just able to. To just take the water with the sun rays and the diver and put it behind the really uh pretty but kind of boring reef scenic and pow.

SPEAKER_02 44:09

Right.

SPEAKER_01 44:10

And it did such a good job. It it's startling, startling, really.

SPEAKER_04 44:14

Yeah, and we were talking about the neural filters that they that they released as well. Well, that they're pitching.

SPEAKER_01 44:20

I mean, yeah, it's hard to kind of get them to work exactly right now. The uh my favorite is the happiness filter.

Todd 44:27

Yes, yeah, the happiness filter.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

Which actually generates teeth. It's kind of creepy.

SPEAKER_04 44:33

Well, and the in and the turning of the head, Todd was don't talk to me about that.

SPEAKER_01 44:36

Well, I've used Liquefy to do that for a long time.

Todd 44:39

But yeah, the fact that it's just a slider and it's it does quite job. Although the happiness filter does not go too far to the other side. I need a complete depression. Like, make this person look really, really sad, like they've been stuck in assets. This is what I look like on COVID. This is right. Like tear generators. The sad filter just looks kind of like Yeah, it's not it doesn't go far enough.

SPEAKER_01 45:01

Uh kind of pouty.

Todd 45:03

Yes. Yeah. It's not Greek.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

You want Greek tragedy. You want Medea. I do. I personally do. But yeah, no, it's still my baby.

SPEAKER_04 45:12

But this just anything, it's anything that can save us time, right? Yeah. Anything that can save us time. Where like uh used to to do skin softening and things like that, frequency separations and all these things. Now I have a slider that I can use. And it might only work, and it might only work 50% of the time. But that 50% is going to be great.

SPEAKER_01 45:36

No, it's great, and then you you have so much control over it because you can layer mask out what you don't want and use blending modes to make it work. I mean, it's just it's so cool to have all those.

Todd 45:47

It they just had their um Adobe Max presentation where they did all this release just uh uh a week ago officially to the public where you saw these new things, but it's awesome. Sky replacement, and as you said, you you if you have a stuff if you start to start shooting beautiful water scenes, you've got your underwater version of sky replacement ready to go. And like you said, dialogue.

SPEAKER_01 46:06

Well, I mean, I'm I'm I'm gonna start encouraging people to do it because why not?

Todd 46:11

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 46:12

You know, why not? You have a beautiful image of something underwater, you white balance it, it looks great, except the whole surface of the water turns pink, right? And it's really hard to make that look reasonable, right? To hell with it. You know, take that take the same scene without the critter in it, just get the water, and now you don't have to white balance anything. The water stays looking awesome, put it back into the shot. I mean, it's already it's the same water minus the subject. That's what I was about to say.

SPEAKER_04 46:41

I think the only time that I that I kind of go back to drawing lines like we were talking about earlier, yeah, is the so with some of the um topside photos and stuff, do I do a lot of like starscapes and things like that. And um I think if you're going to do a sky replacement, the sky has to legitimately be be able to have been in that position. Yes. Like there should you shouldn't take the Milky Way with the galactic center that you can only get shooting south from the northern hemisphere and put it in a north-facing image.

SPEAKER_02 47:14

Yeah, it's uh where do polar bears live again?

SPEAKER_04 47:17

Right, exactly. Have the Aurora Borealis over Miami. You know, we gotta I think there are certain things uh and you can do that as long as you like you said, as long as you're transparent about it. This is digital art, you know. Right. This is that is digital art.

SPEAKER_01 47:34

It's a it's a totally different thing if you're if you're claiming it to be natural history or journalism. Right. Totally different.

Todd 47:40

Right. But I I think if you want to have Aurora Borealis over Miami, by all means you are okay to do it. Unless you're Dalton or working for a newspaper agency, it's it's all digital art now.

SPEAKER_01 47:52

Like as long as it's not meant to if you have something that's digital art like that, it's just a whole different critter. It doesn't even it doesn't even fit in really to the photography thing. It's it's like a uh uh pastiche, you know, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 48:11

Or it's more like a s surrealism kind of painting.

Todd 48:14

You know, but but in my mind uh astrophotography is that like you don't see when we look at stars and natural, you don't see the galactic score like that in real life, but the camera does because it can keep its so it's already art. And the fact that you're gonna explain uh do a blue hour shot and blend it in with art, most people that see that shot assume the photographer just took one image and unless you're photographer and just figure no, that's they must have gone somewhere like that.

SPEAKER_02 48:43

Right.

Todd 48:43

Right? But right, but that's uh that's the whole thing is most normal people that view art are just gonna assume no, that was the shot, unless you're also happening to be a photographer. But so long as it looks natural, you know, and it's believable, that's fine. And like you said, if you're submitting it for something other than your own personal gallery of work, then you definitely need to say, here's how I did it, here's how I did it. But even on your own, the question is, even on your own portfolio, how much do you have to disclose to say, well, okay, the moon wasn't really gigantic, right?

SPEAKER_01 49:18

Yeah, like I transformed that by 77%. Yeah. Right. Um, I think that there's a, you know, there there's a real um advantage to putting everything in metadata that you do, uh, that you can embed in an image at your choice. You can choose to embed the metadata about what you did. This is a composite, this has had spot removal, this has had, you know, whatever it is that you've done. You can actually put that in a comment section or in a description in the metadata of the image, but then you can choose whether to embed that at delivery or not, depending upon the use. And and that way, actually, it's a practical thing. You remember what you did too.

Todd 50:00

Yes, exactly. And I don't see anything wrong with that.

SPEAKER_04 50:04

Honestly, I think the people that care about that don't matter because they're usually haters that are just trying to hate. Um, yeah, I think so too. Oh, it that wasn't.

SPEAKER_01 50:14

There's just there's just a there's a big sour grapes contingent.

SPEAKER_04 50:17

Because if you're supplying that image to an ad agency, let's say, they don't care. They're they they care about your ability to get the shot that they want. Like if you're showing them a portfolio. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:30

Hey, an ad agency, skip that. Scuba diving magazine. They don't care.

SPEAKER_02 50:33

Yeah, they don't care.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

They don't care. Yep, they don't care. As long as it looks good and is factually accurate, right? They don't care what you did to get it. Right. Right. So Which is a whole other topic.

Todd 50:46

I mean, have you tried using the happiness slider on a frogfish yet, Aaron?

SPEAKER_01 50:51

You can't. It makes me so mad because they will only recognize human faces.

SPEAKER_04 50:57

We need a free swimming octopus filter. Right.

SPEAKER_01 50:59

Oh, wouldn't that be nice? You just like whatever. Right. Octopus Vogue. Right.

Working with ScubaDiving Magazine

SPEAKER_04 51:04

Exactly. Exactly.

Todd 51:06

So you've worked with Scuba Diving magazine too. I think I saw in your uh so uh I'm sure you've had several photos and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 51:13

Yeah, I did for a long time, like I think almost four years. Yeah, I did. I I, you know, before COVID, I was traveling seven months out of the year, often without internet, doing like 400 dives a year, and it just got to be so I felt so bad I was always late. I could never get it done in time. I was like, you know, in the Singapore airport, like frantically trying to upload. I've got like three seconds to get to the gate, and I'm like, I'm not gonna have internet again for three weeks. So yeah, it got to be a little bit um tough to do. And I think that um people in general, like the the scuba diving uh magazine target audience are not they are more interested in um you know, new gear kind of thing. They don't go there for technical help unless it's about gear, you know, that kind of kind of stuff. Shooting techniques is a good way to go there. It's really hard to come up with a um an editing technique that you can describe in 700 words, you know, because it's very limited. 700 words that that isn't either too advanced, too elementary, or redundant that you haven't done before. It's really, really hard. I think I just kind of don't know what else I can do now.

Todd 52:31

I'm sure they have that problem in all aspects of it, like how many times do you want to go to Komodo and report on it, right? Okay, well now there's a new boat there.

SPEAKER_02 52:38

Apparently endless.

Todd 52:40

Right. Right? They still gotta push something out. So maybe too fine to point on it. Maybe you can yeah, maybe you can apply that to post-processing articles that you that you do for them as well.

SPEAKER_01 52:50

I just try and like uh repackage it in something else, you know. Put the big juicy center can be the same, but yeah, the what the costume around it can be different. It's you know, and people people learn uh different ways too, you know. So you you find a a way that a different way of getting into the same material is also valuable for that material because somebody might trigger to that more than they would, you know, one that you've done before.

SPEAKER_04 53:17

Yeah. Now, do you find um uh being an educator more satisfying or being a photographer more satisfying or doing post? What what really what is satisfies Aaron?

SPEAKER_01 53:31

Uh it's weird. I don't think I can imagine doing one without the other. You know, for me they're they're they're definitely um not mutually exclusive. I love shooting underwater and I love working on my own images. I can't imagine shooting without doing the post. I love teaching because it's what teaches me. So I learn more from teaching than I do from anything else. I mean, it every single time I teach a class, whether it's with um a group of students who respond to me in person, you know, like a boot camp, or whether it's through these online webinars where I'm forced to have basically an hour and a half monologue in which I better get it right. Um it really teaches me about how I think about what I'm doing as an artist, but also it stimulates me to look into different techniques and different things that otherwise I wouldn't. Because you know, you just get used to doing something you've been doing for a long time, you do it quickly, it works, it's fine. But when someone asks you a question about it, and you actually have to verbalize an answer in a way that they can understand instead of saying, Well, I've just been doing it that way forever. Right. It could it's a complete mind um mind f I was gonna say, but it it's mind blowing. It is, it is both of those things. You know how educational teaching is, and I love it. I'm passionate about it. I'm as passionate about teaching as I am about uh my shooting, and I think you know, people that have come to a boot camp or something will see that I am a dog with a bone about them getting the topic. We are not skating through this, and okay, it's day five, whoo, thank God they're gone because they're never gonna get it. No, that is not how I work. Right. You know, I I have a stake in people learning the stuff that I'm teaching. It validates me as a teacher. If people aren't learning it, I'm doing something wrong. So I have to reevaluate my techniques. I mean, I we talked briefly about this before, but on a completely uh like wild, unimaginable part of my life, I started um helping someone teach a gun class that's for people like me who are terrified of guns, right? Terrified of guns. I was assaulted at gunpoint as a kid, and I just my whole life have been terrified of guns. There's you know 394 million of them in America, more than one per person. Just thought this isn't going away anywhere, I have to learn how to do this. But, you know, I convinced someone that I knew of a totally different mindset, that there were a lot of people like me, and I had to decide what how it would be taught, how you can teach this thing to people who, you know, I know why I was afraid. Why is everybody else afraid? It kind of goes to post-production too. I mean, people are afraid of Photoshop. I don't know why they're afraid. I love it, I think it's great, but you have to be able to verbalize it. You have to be able to figure out what tools you're gonna demonstrate it with. You have to be able to, and this is, I think, one of the most important things about teaching is if you are really fluent in the thing that you're teaching, you know where the roadblocks are. Yeah, right. You know where people are gonna fail. You know where it's gonna be confusing. So if you can get ahead of it and say, okay, look, we're coming to a dark, scary part of the road. Right. Just stick near me. Trust me, I will get you to the warm little cabin in the woods with the bread and the oven and the fire and where everything's fine. Yeah. Uh, but until then, we're gonna talk about layer masks. Or, you know, until then we're gonna talk about trigger control, or until the whatever it is. Um, I think that as a teacher, you know, you you really have to investigate how you learn.

SPEAKER_04 57:27

And I think there's uh I think there's something for when you see your students get it.

SPEAKER_01 57:34

Oh, I love that. The aha moment.

SPEAKER_04 57:37

Yeah, there's there's so that I think that's one of the uh things that make me happiest when I have students is when you see something click and I agree, I agree. That's cool.

Tips for People Just Starting Post Processing

SPEAKER_01 57:48

I agree, I love it.

Todd 57:49

For newer underwater photographers, is there something like the most common thing that you need to harp on to someone uh from a post-processing thing just getting used to Lightroom and or Photoshop? What are some of those things that if it you're just getting into it, that really just give them the most bang for the buck?

SPEAKER_01 58:07

The most bang for the buck is do not skip the organizational part in Lightroom to get to fixing your pictures. Do not skip it because two things will happen. A, you won't be able to find your pictures ever again.

Todd 58:21

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 58:22

And you could accidentally throw them away. Um, and and B, Lightroom's superpower is the organizational side of it. Absolutely. It really is. And it talk about life-changing and and talk about being able to get to being creative. You can't be truly creative if you're just so overwhelmed by worrying about do I have this backed up, what version am I working on? If you embrace the the learning curve, and there is a learning curve because it's not intuitive, it's getting a little better, but you know, if you embrace that beginning part of Lightroom uh at the beginning, you're going to be golden. If you don't, you're gonna have trouble down the road. It it's unavoidable. You're gonna it's gonna just gonna be a mess. So and and then troubleshooting is really hard if you haven't embraced the beginning and you don't understand how it works. And then with Photoshop, you know, don't go there if you don't have to. But I think for underwater photographers, if you're shooting and there's backscatter, you have to. Because the Lightroom tools suck for that. They suck.

Todd 59:31

Lightroom would have to be rebuilt on the ground up when it comes to that. Doesn't mean they can't do it. Um and they've already I mean, just the you know, healing brushes are a lot faster than it. I mean, it used to be horrible. Oh, yeah. Right? It's so much better now than it than it used to be.

SPEAKER_01 59:44

But to really No, and the new update is really good too.

Todd 59:47

Yeah, so I think it's um it I I would love it if it's worked as well as Photoshop, of course, to not have to go there for certain things. But like you said, there's probably part of it, they don't want to cannibalize each other's products to some degree, right? But I think there's a big part of it. It's it's just not built that way, and they'd have to throw everything out and start over again.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:05

Something else I would say to new um editors who you know want the the power that Photoshop has is that don't learn everything. You only need to learn what you need to learn. And uh my theory is that there are like six things in Photoshop. There are six concepts only, half a dozen concepts that if you learn it, Photoshop is your oyster. There, there's nothing that you can't do as a photographer if you just learn these six basic concepts. Now, some of the concepts, like layers and layer masking, you know, take a little bit of work to wrap your head around. But what it's a simple, simple idea that's difficult in practice because of the visual confusion that happens when you're working on images and layers and layer masks. But if you learn the little tricks, there are little tricks, turn the eyeball on and off on every layer to see exactly what's in it. Learn the keyboard shortcuts to turn them on and off with keyboard shortcuts. All of a sudden, it's like, oh my gosh, just learning that one concept has opened up so many new horizons. So, you know, that just I I think that just going to Photoshop to learn what you need to learn and not worry about anything else until you're ready is a really good suggestion for people who are just starting. All you want to do is remove backscatter, great. Learn more tools than the clone tool. Right. All the tools that you can remove backscatter with, but maybe you don't need to composite. You know, learn exactly only what you need to learn and don't stress about the rest.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:43

Yeah, yeah. And Photoshop has been, or Adobe, I should say, has been great about making some of those changes in Photoshop where it's easier to like blending modes. It used to be you had to know what the blending mode did because it didn't give you any kind of preview. So but now you can just scroll over it and it it shows you. And so little things like that I think make a huge difference in understanding what those tools do.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:11

Exactly, exactly.

Todd 1:02:12

So yeah, and I and I'd say uh only to add to that is don't let it intimidate you. There's a lot of stuff buried behind menu bars. Well, that's just how we worked in the 90s and earlier. That's just how every application was built. If you think of the old Microsoft Word and Excel, everything was just hiding behind menus. And it's better now, but it's still a version of that. And because of that, it seems inaccessible. Yeah, it's not that bad, and you just have to play around and experiment and not get intimidated by a couple of those features.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:40

And you'll get and one of the one of the things I have on the website that's for free that you can download is a keyboard shortcut list.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:48

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:48

And you know, I tell people um in Lightroom, uh, knowing keyboard shortcuts will make you a better editor. But it's not you don't have to. You can get around Lightroom without it.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:00

In Photoshop, you have to.

Link To Shortcuts and Org Structures (click here)

SPEAKER_01 1:03:03

You have to. It is de rigueur. You have to. Just because of those menus, there you go. Just because of those uh menus. And by the way, you'll see also we talked about before, don't ignore the organizational part of Lightroom. You can download a version of my recommended folder structure as well. So when you're starting Lightroom, you start off on the right foot. You know, as you get better, you can customize it to your heart's content. But what I tell people is you're a beginner, you came to me to tell you how to do this, just do what I goddamn tell you to do until you're ready to do otherwise. You know, and this structure is something that works for everyone who's a traveling diver. It can be underwater trips, it can be your grandmother's 90th birthday, it can be anything that you break down. But people um in the effort to become organized get too granular. Yeah, they make too many folders, they break it down into too many different elements, and it's a recipe for disaster. They don't understand that. Like folders to me are the enemy. You know, I as few folders as possible. Um, even though that's unintuitive when you're getting organized, feels like the more you had, the more it's absolutely untrue. So I think you know, getting a again back to that, the basics, yeah, the basics, the folder structure, understanding how a database works. Right. Yeah. A few keyboard shortcuts. You don't have to memorize all of them by road, but memorize the first six that you use all the time: command or control A, command, you know, all the things that you're always using. And in Photoshop, you have to memorize the menus to find anything. Why don't you just memorize a keyboard shortcut?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:47

If there's anything that you have to do six or more times, make an action for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:54

Yes. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And there, and that's one of the things that there are a lot of actions out there. And if you don't know how to make an action, you can just import the action and use it.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:03

And and if you ever have any questions, you can just go ask Aaron.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:08

Yes, yes. The downside to ask it's a name of your company, go ask Aaron, is that who would know? People ask you questions all the time. So uh, but you know, to be clear, one of the things is um, you know, I I welcome everybody's questions, but I am not going to tell you which computer system to buy. No, I am not gonna help you set up your gear. Yeah, I'm not gonna tell you which camera to buy. That's not my wheelhouse. You know, if you have a question about a particular image, or if you have a question about Photoshop or Lightroom, or to some degree premiere with Go Ask Aaron because of Joel's expertise, we're happy to field all of that. But you know, if it's like, where should I go on my vacation and should I get the the new Canon? I heard it heats up too much. No. No, don't ask someone else.

Todd 1:05:56

Don't ask Aaron.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:58

Don't ask Aaron.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:59

Don't ask Aaron. So speaking of cameras, what uh what cameras are you using right now, Aaron?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:05

I am shooting a Canon 1DX Mark III. Well, I say shooting, I haven't really been able to put it in the water yet. So I have a Canon 1DX Mark III and uh not a cam housing. The thing about the Canon camera for me is you know, this is a very personal opinion. So in the Nikon and Canon Wars, there's so much else out there now. The Sony's are awesome, all the mirrorless. But talking about single lens reflex, full frame cameras, okay. Um, if you are only shooting stills, I think the Nikon has an advantage. Uh, it's this giant file size, you know, the resolution is great. Uh, the uh and I'm talking about the high-end Nikon. I'm talking about the D850 or whatever it is now. Amazing, amazing camera with great glass, really good glass. I am a hybrid shooter. I shoot both video and stills. And underwater, video is particularly difficult because of the way that you need to color correct while you're shooting. You either have to light the shit out of it, or you have to be able to do a custom white balance as you're descending or ascending. About every 10 feet, you have to really set a new white balance in order to get a reasonable rendition. There are very, very few cameras that can do that. And the Canon underwater white balance for video is like unbelievable. It's like you're shooting through a red filter. I mean, it's a 60-foot, you know. I somewhere up online I have a from I don't know how long ago it was. It was when the first 1DX came out, but I have uh uh some footage of a grouper getting cleaned in little Cayman, and it was at 60 feet. It was with natural light. It looks like it's in air. I mean, it's just beautiful. It's so perfectly color corrected. It's beautiful. The warm colors are warm. And so Canon for me has uh an edge on the video part of a for an SLR.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:08

Um, you know, the Sonys and stuff, the the micro four thirds have a whole different thing going on. If I were only shooting stills, I would probably look at the high-end Nikons. Only shooting video, I might look at a Sony or a red or a Black Magic, another one of those cameras. Or even the GoPro on the low end of the budget. Amazing, amazing, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:30

Love my GoPros.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:31

Yep. But if you are a hybrid shooter, you know, I think the Canon, hybrid underwater shooter, I should say. I think the Canon has some advantages.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:39

Yeah, the Canon does and it has some advantages on land too. The the autofocus for video on the Canon is just much better. Much better than than what Nikon has had previously. I know they've been switching over to the uh to the phase detection.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:58

Yeah. I mean, getting a w a custom white balance underwater with an icon, just just you just want to open a vein. It's just like, you know, it's just not reliable.

Todd 1:09:08

Out of curiosity, so what is your typical standard technique? Do you have to take do you take a white balance card or you do you eyeball it?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:14

So um it'll depend on the situation, right? If I I I do have a card that I carry with me, but I find that I use it only in situations where there's not immediate action happening. So if if it's a setup, if I want to capture a reef scenic or something like that, um, and I have time, I'll I'll use the card because it's actually kind of hard. You know, you have to hold it down here, and you've got this heavy camera and the whole thing. Um, I have found that the best thing to white balance on for me is just rubble. Yeah, not anything white, not anything like sand doesn't have enough uh texture to get the best white balance. For me, it's like rubble, and even if it's slightly uh yellow or slightly purple or something like that, it's close enough. It's close enough for posts, right? I mean just a little nudge in post is gonna give me what I want. So anything I I mean I'm I don't go crazy in a you know, if I'm mid-water, I'll shoot up at the surface of the water and and do that. Or I'll you know, I'll try and do my hand, which is just as hard by the way as holding the white balance card, but you don't have to unclip it from your BC. Mostly.

Todd 1:10:23

My white balance card was always getting lost, so I just gave up on that.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:27

Yeah, you gotta like hook, you gotta get two big double enders and clip it off with multiple double enders. Only use one clip so it'll weight it down to the bottom if you're gonna use it.

unknown 1:10:38

Nice.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:39

So I gotta ask Aaron question for you with uh in regards to white balance and custom white balance. I I've personally found that there are times that it's better for me to do a custom white balance than trying to correct the white balance in post.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:56

Yes. Um for stills or video, you mean or both? For stills.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:02

Both.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:02

Stills mostly, but yes, so um but but it has a lot to do with the conditions. So if you are able to shoot your subject with the sun behind you and you're 60 feet or above and you have a camera that does a good custom white balance underwater, then yeah. Um but but what happens is um you're unable to knock back hard cast shadows and things like that when you do a custom white balance. So again, you know, if you don't need the advantages that, for instance, a fill light gives you, um yeah, then that that's great. And you know, it's the darker you the deeper you go, the darker it gets, the bluer it gets, the more extreme a correction has to be made, the more noise is going to be introduced, and the harder it's gonna be in post to shift it at all. So I found that when I do a custom white balance for stills, it's really hard to additionally white balance in post. It it's a whole different uh push-pull on the colors. So I would say I agree with you if the situation is right.

Todd 1:12:10

Another freebie from Aaron. There we go.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:14

I love it.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:14

Now you've had a taste, your first one's free. After that, you gotta pay for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:18

The first one's free, yeah, exactly. Actually, they're all free if you tune in live.

Todd 1:12:22

If you tune in live, otherwise, Erin will uh very happily uh meet with you. She has an hourly rate, I think, is posted on her site also. So I do. I do have lessons, you can do that as well. Yep. All sorts of if you're really, really brave.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:36

I I know that uh we kind of hit on some uh conservation and environmental stuff earlier. Are there any groups that that you are a part of or interact with as far as uh rather be shark savers or love the oceans or I like uh conservation international and um I I do belong to like a bill a bazillion uh conservation group, so it's hard to say which one.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:11

I mean, um you know I travel a lot to the Malbeeves and the Manta project there is really great. Um so there's there's just like Sharksavers I do love. Sharksavers is great. I tend to steer clear of like uh sea shepherds and things that are like really entirely political because I think that although they can have the most impact sometimes, the ones that work steadily and quietly in the background and don't have as much overhead, I think are are kind of the the ways to go. I also think that um you know conservation in a in a giant uh part is litigation. And so when you find groups that are active in um supporting uh you know good litigation and good laws that have to do with the marine environment, that that's a really good one. I'm trying to think of the one I'm thinking about now, is the um it's not the ACLU, but it's four letters like that. I can't remember what it is. But all they do is uh lobby for underwater causes and push litigation. So, like having shark finning banned, or even having the the transfer on airplanes of shark fins to different places in the United States banned. Those people do that work. They're not in the water, it's not sexy, but it's arguably more important than any of the other stuff that we see on camera.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:39

Yeah, and getting getting marine respected areas protected.

Todd 1:14:45

Let's transfer to more on the personal side now that we covered, I think, a lot about go ask Aaron.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:51

I want to know You did find a picture of me flashing my. I did not well.

Todd 1:14:59

On a related note, uh are there any memorable dive experiences, speaking of flashing, that you jump out at you, like some of your favorite dives? It doesn't have to be photography related.

Shark Encounter

SPEAKER_01 1:15:09

There there are a couple of things that spring to mind. One is that um I my I have a younger sister, Noelle, who when we were growing up, was so obsessed with Jaws. I mean, just obsessed with Jaws, obsessed with sharks. And I at the time wasn't into it at all. And I just like, oh my God, enough already. Um, but as we got older and I got into diving, I wanted to, she she wasn't really a diver. I mean, she got certified, but she didn't dive a lot. She had kids instead. Um, and so I eventually was in the position where I was like, Noelle, for your birthday, because her birthday is one day in front of mine. I was like, I'm gonna take you to uh, you know, um Isla Guadalupe, and we're gonna see great white sharks, and it's totally safe. You're in a cage, you don't even need to be certified scuba diver, but you are. But if you just want to be at the surface, it's no big deal. And she was like, Oh no, no, no, no, no. I have seen those YouTube videos. I have seen what happens when the shark crashes into the cage and people are falling out the bottom, and no, no, no. And I was like, Noelle, that just it doesn't happen. There's no just so rare, and you know, it just doesn't happen. So we go on a trip, and um, it's the first day out at the island, and she's nervous. So I say, okay, I'm gonna go, I'll go first, and you can just get your stuff together and just watch how it happens, and you don't have to be stressed out, you know, without knowing what's going on. So I get in a cage, goes down, shark gets into the cage. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. How can this happen? We're in one of the deep cages, and the dive master's on the top, you know, stomping on a canvas bag full of fish heads or whatever. And the shars are coming in, and all the señoritas, those little fish are around, and the shark can't see, and the dive master can't see, and we can't see, and all of a sudden, boom, something's happening. I don't know what it is, but I feel like, you know, a canary in a cage is getting shaken. The regulator gets ripped out of my mouth, you know, because it's getting the shark actually is caught in the cabling and is twisting around, so everything's getting ripped out. So the four of us in the cage are frantically going for the regs on the tanks and strapped in the corner of the cage. You know, my who knows what happened to my camera. I pretty much just I think well, I never let it go, but I wasn't shooting. And I'm thinking the whole time, god damn it, Noelle is gonna be so mad. And sure enough, you know, we finally we the shark gets out of the cage and we get pulled up to the surface. And my sister Noelle is like this. Oh my god, Erin, you lied to me, she's so mad, I'm never going in. It was you know, very memorable. She did go in and we had a great time. I was said, now that she's out of the cage, it will never happen again.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:02

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:02

But that was a good one. And then another thing that uh that springs to mind is um my first experience of a large school of fish, like a massive school of fish, uh, which was in Cocos. And it was a school of jacks must have been like a quarter of a mile long. This was years ago, and it was just massive. And I remember being in the middle of it and feeling you know, just the the you know how a school of fish kind of creates its own current. And just feeling like I wanted to just be there in the middle of it forever, like it was just fascinating to me. Um, and in a similar thing, the first time that I was ever in the water with whales, with uh humpback whales in Tonga, and uh it's just snorkeling, but I we got in, my friend Jennifer O'Neill and I got in, and there was a mom and calf and um an uh escort, and the escort was singing, and they were right below us. And I I was pretty jaded by this point. I mean, this was only a couple years ago, and I just was like, Oh, I couldn't even take the picture, it's so beautiful. You can feel it. I was just floating there, and back in the back of my head, I was like, take the fucking picture, take the picture. I was like, no, I just want to have the memory. It was great.

Todd 1:19:24

It was really good. That's amazing. That's awesome. That is awesome. And did you get the picture?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:31

I got the picture.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:32

Good.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:33

I did get the picture.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:34

Of course, the the little voice at the back of the head always wants to be.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:37

The little voice wins out eventually, yeah. I another thing I love, it's not like a totally memorable dive, but I think everyone has had this experience, so I'll mention it, is when um everything goes right against all odds. You can't believe it's happening in front of you. I love those times. Those are my favorite things, not just because you're getting a great picture, but because you're seeing something unbelievable happen. You know, you're set up on a piece of rock hoping that the octopus comes out, and the octopus comes out and starts mating with another octopus, and they're looking in the camera, and they've got their they're all glossy and they're all ready to go. Oh my god, you know, those moments when the universe provides and everything falls into place are so still what I dive for. I still love that. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:29

Awesome. Well, speaking of dives, I know that you uh said at one point you're diving like 400 times a year, so you must have a pretty big catalog racked up.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:39

Oh God, don't even talk to me about it. You know, it's that thing that the cobbler's children have no shoes. I, you know, it's like, yeah, I tell people to be organized and have the catalog, but my my problem is, yeah, I've got a ton of images and video, time consuming, as you know, uh racked up. And when I'm on a trip, I don't get a chance to work on my own stuff. And when I get home, I'm usually into the business of go ask Aaron, it's hard for me to get time to work on my own stuff. So I have a huge catalog, and I am in the business of making fake catalogs to demonstrate to people. So while I'm doing this, I'm thinking in the back of my head, oh, this is bad. Oh, this is a mess. Oh, I should not be doing this. So, yeah, I have a big catalog. I have some I I I have five years of amazing video that I have not been able to get together, you know, to do anything meaningful with it all except just put up straight clips.

Erin's 2016 Album

Todd 1:21:39

Yeah. Well, it seems like at least 2016 was a really good year for you because you have some amazing photos just in your 2016 album on your Facebook page. Uh, I love the bouche. What? Is it you mean to tell me the moon wasn't that big?

SPEAKER_04 1:21:55

That's a Peter Lick moon there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:56

And by the way, here's a little here's a little uh hint. When you have an image that has too much backscatter in it or or whatever, and you just don't want to do it, turn it into a night image and the backscatter becomes stars. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:10

Nice, I like it. So how many uh how many dives do you have under your belt, Aaron?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:14

Probably, oh gosh, I stopped counting, but probably three or four thousand, probably, something something like that when I do the math.

Todd 1:22:23

It's a fair, it's a fair few.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:25

It's a chunk. I got a chunk of them.

Todd 1:22:28

I got a few.

Maldives Getaway

SPEAKER_01 1:22:28

Got a few. You know, it this is the longest I've been out of the water in years. You know, since since March. I I I went to Cuba on a coin flip. You know, all this was just kind of happening, but people were saying, no, no, it's no big deal. I went to Cuba on a coin flip. And by the time I got off the boat, it was like, oh, I was with Alex Mustard. By the time I got off the boat, it was like, uh-uh, you have 24 hours to leave the country. California's shut down. It was nuts. And you know, I haven't I barely, you know, done anything since then. I certainly haven't been diving since then, but I am like November 15th. I am going to roll the COVID dice, get on a plane, and go to the Maldives, and I'm gonna stay there for a month.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:10

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:11

So I will be, you know, look forward to some new imaging coming. My new camera can't wait.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:19

Now, was that more of a last-minute trip that you threw together?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:22

Last minute being it's a casual trip, it's not really an advertised uh commercial trip.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:28

But yeah, but I know like for like Todd and I were headed to Africa, supposed to be in August, but that all got canceled because Kenya uh was it Kenya that wasn't letting anyone in? Yeah, yeah, Kenya wasn't letting anyone in. And like a friend of ours had their Indonesia trip canceled for similar reasons. So that's the only reason I asked if it was something that you put together.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:51

Yeah, I've had nine, I've had nine trips canceled. Yeah. And uh one of those trips was a back-to-back boot cam in Little Cayman at the end of November into the you know first week of December. And we I I was waiting it until last week, really, or yeah, very recently. I was waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting to see if that was gonna go. And then Cayman's like, nope, mid-January is the first time we're gonna even entertain uh opening for tourism. So I was like, damn it. And I have a really good friend, she's actually my dive buddy, um, Martine Van Well, she's the general manager of this crazy resort in the Maldives called Six Senses, Lamu. They're like the the next to last outer atoll, and it's the you know, the resort's its own island and all that stuff. And she's been trying to get me to come and stay there for a length of time for years, and I've just never been able to do that. I've been to the resort a few times, but I've never been able to go. It's not a dive resort per se. It's like a spa, they have a great dive operation, and the diving there is amazing, but the it, you know, people don't go there for a dive trip. So um, Jen and Joel Penner and I are gonna go there for a month, and we're gonna do Go Ask Erin from uh from Lamu. We haven't really been talking about that publicly, but that's what our plan is to is to broadcast go ask Aaron from there. And uh so yeah, I'm gonna be there from the um from November 15th to December 17th. And what I've been telling people is if you want to come and hang out, we're there. It's not a formal trip. I will be doing little mini classes, and if you come, I will give you one-on-one help, um, as will Joel and Jen. But it's not structured like a workshop trip is, and it's just a magnificent place, even if all you want to do is escape COVID and stare at the most beautiful scenery you've ever seen. Um, there's zero incidence of COVID on the island, and the the way that you have to get there is so rigorous in terms of testing. So, you know, to get on Emirates or or Cutter Airlines, you have to be tested and quarantined before you can get on the plane. And then all their employees are tested every 48 hours, and besides which they're kind of in hazmat suits. And then so you know everybody on the plane is negative, and all the people on the plane are negative. The air is filtered anyway, and then when you get to the uh Maldives, you have to be tested to be led into the country. And then, but you don't have to quarantine if you have a negative test, which you should um after that. And then when you get to the island, you have to be tested again, and there's no anything, and then going back, it's kind of the reverse. So I feel like, you know, in order for my world to go on, for my life to go on in a recognizable way, I have to be responsible. I can't, I can't say to everybody else, oh come on, do it, it's safe. That's not what I'm doing at all. But I have to, you know, make my own decisions and I feel like it's like as safe as could be humanly possible on that private trip.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:56

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:56

So uh the the thing I'm not looking forward is the 17-hour flight LA to Doha with a mask on.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:02

So just find a really comfortable mask.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:06

Ah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:08

If there is one.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:09

I have a feeling that I have a feeling that the intermittent uh glass of champagne with the mask down might help. Yeah. A little bathroom break.

Todd 1:27:17

That's extra plenty of skin cream to prevent any irritation. Chaffing, yeah. Yeah. That sounds like it'd be a fantastic time, though. So uh for sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:26

Can't wait to uh you'll be seeing some images.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:30

And they have really good internet there, so yeah.

Todd 1:27:33

We were talking about Donald and I did um uh a triple port episode a few uh a month or two ago on the Maldives, and one of the things we said was pleasantly surprising was how good the internet services in the Maldives.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:44

No, they have really good internet, really sp you know, peppy broadband internet. It's good.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:48

And we had reception between islands for our cell phones pretty much everywhere we went. Pretty much. Very few times did we run out of out of uh cell range.

Todd 1:27:59

The End result was well, would you recommend people spend all that 17-hour flight to get to Doha and then another time and all the time and expense to actually go to the Maldives? And the answer was yes, and not necessarily for the diving, but just to get the resort experience was so Yeah, and we will, I mean, obviously I'm going to dive.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:19

I'm dying to dive, but I realize that not everybody is, you know, as manic as I am about it. And if really, you know, you don't, you don't you can do one dive a day there and not feel bad about it at all. Right, right. And their house reef, you know, the the boats I'm talking about, I get on a boat, I go out to the channels, it's drifting, it's challenging, it's currents, it's you know, all that kind of stuff. But their house reef is amazing. They've got crazy stuff on there. Last time I was there, I shot this um some kind of uh snake eel that's unidentified. You know, out in the middle of the day, this beautiful, it looks like Dr. Seuss's creature, you know, with stripes and polka dots, black and white and blue eyes, and it it wasn't a sea snake, it was a snake eel. But they've also got hairy shrimp, you know, all the things a lot of the things that you find in Indonesia and Lembe are there, a giant population of turtles. Giant, like uh Ridley sea turtles and green turtles. I I mean, I don't think I've seen that many turtles on a single dive anywhere. Every dive I would see half a dozen turtles, minimum, minimum. Just great. And sharks, mantas, all kinds of sharks, uh, mantas uh on almost every dive, tons of dolphin. It's just a it's just a really, you know, it's a great little remote place to go.

Todd 1:29:34

Yeah, and just having that vibe of having an being on a secluded island, you have it all to yourself and a couple of friends is just yes, and then of course there's the singing bull massages.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:47

My favorites. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:49

All right. Well, we uh we usually wrap up our our interviews with a thing we call the dive brief. Uh-oh.

Todd 1:29:56

It's five rapid fire questions, just whatever comes to your mind. We'll ask you a question, whatever pops right at the top of your mind. Oh, wait, no. Yeah, exactly. Now you got it. That's the answer for you already answered the first one.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:09

Yeah, the first uh the first question is I scream something out and you ask me a question about it after it. And we'll see if it works. Well, let's see how that works. We'll start right now. We got we got the perfect one.

Todd 1:30:19

Question number one is what is your favorite dive snack?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:22

My favorite dive snack. Oh, it would have to be the best local fruit. So you know, if I'm in New Guinea, those little tiny bananas. Right, you know, in Komodo, they have these great little um, they're like mangoes, but they're not mangoes. I don't know what they're called. So the best local fruit would be my favorite and lemon heads.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:43

Lemon heads. Nice. That'll definitely get the taste of the ocean out of your mouth for sure. Exactly. Um, other than your camera and housing, what's your favorite piece of dive gear?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:52

Oh, my fins.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:54

What kind of fins are you rocking?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:55

I have some kind of long uh Plana Avanti uh quattros they're called, power quattros. So they're in between a free diving fin and a uh regular scuba fin, and they're fantastic. They're I I I wear the full foot fins even in cold water because I feel like it gives my kick a better connection. Um I've kind of gotten used to to these fins. I've got like four pairs of them, they're great. And they come in a really cool Go Ask Erin camouflage green.

Todd 1:31:23

Nice, nice, available on your shop link. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:29

Order them directly from Go Ask Erin and you might get some swipe.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:32

My gosh, they're kind of hard to find. So yeah.

Todd 1:31:35

If you could choose somewhere to dive that you haven't been.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:38

Hmm, interesting. Maybe Africa.

Todd 1:31:41

Head to Mozambique or Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:43

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:44

Yeah. What is your favorite post-dive drink?

SPEAKER_01 1:31:49

Oh, well, um, if it's available in quality uh I would say any uh champagne, so bubbly wine. But otherwise, mommy's special water, mommy's special water is just vodka with frozen water.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:06

I like it.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:09

Mommy's special water, can't go wrong.

Todd 1:32:11

What is your favorite sea animal?

SPEAKER_01 1:32:13

Oh, uh easily cephalopod, octopus.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:16

The whole the whole family, like we're talking cuttlefish.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:19

Oh, yeah, cuttlefish, pygmy, every, you know, flamboyant cuttlefish. I really believe that cephalopods, but octopus in general are aliens. They are here from a more advanced society. I'm almost positive.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:32

Yes. Yeah, we were uh we were talking about that the other day. Uh I I'm I we assume that you've watched uh was it Todd? My octopus teacher, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:43

I haven't seen it yet. Isn't that crazy? I have not had time to see it. Somehow I saw Borat 2, but I didn't see my octopus teacher.

Todd 1:32:50

Very nice. Very nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:52

Very nice, very nice. Very nice. Yeah, I think I need my octopus teacher as a pellet cleanser. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:59

So, what's the most frustrating thing about diving?

SPEAKER_01 1:33:03

The most frustrating thing for me about diving, I would say, is just the physical limitations that diving imposes. So, you know, the possibility of getting bent if you stay in for four hours.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:15

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:15

Or, you know, that kind of stuff. Running, you know, just the physical limitations because I always seem to find the perfect subject near the end of a dive. Right. You know, and so that that is really frustrating. And second, second thing for me is the amount of gear I have to travel. And since I travel by myself, I'm I'm bringing 300 pounds of gear, literally 300 pounds of gear, a backpack that weighs 40 pounds, a vest that weighs 38 pounds, a waist pack, fanny pack that weighs nine pounds, you know, and I think I'm about three inch shorter since I started diving, just from the traveling.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:55

Yeah, yeah. The traveling one is definitely a pain. And I think uh the first one, Todd and I are right there with you. We we always say it's uh getting out.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:04

It's getting out. That's it.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:06

Having to get out.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:07

Uh we're we're usually first ones in, last ones out.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:10

Yeah, me too. I I get in trouble for that all the time. But uh and I, you know, I understand safety, I I know, but I try to get away from other people on the times. Yeah I'm not I'm a really shitty buddy. I'm a real terrible buddy, I admit it, you know? And so I that that is very frustrating for me. The the whole idea. I understand the safety issues, don't get me wrong, but the idea that we that that has to even exist makes me mad.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:42

Yeah, that's one of the things Todd and I are grateful that that we're most of the 90% of the time, we're each other's dive buddy, and so we're equally as shitty about it. Yeah, exactly. Because we're both off taking pictures.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:54

So yeah, the person I mentioned, uh Martine Van Well, who runs the resort, she's a really good dive buddy because we have gotten into the habit of if I'm taking stills, she'll take stills. If she's taking video, I'll take video. So we're on the same page and we just keep each other's bubbles in sight, you know. Exactly right. We're really respectful of how wide a wide angle is, for instance. Right. If you see yourself in somebody else's dome port, you know, you gotta either put your legs together and look pretty or get the hell out. Exactly. Most people don't realize that.

Todd 1:35:24

Yeah. Yeah, you're either a model or you need to get the heck out of the exactly.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:30

All right, well, Aaron, it's been great having you on. But before we say our goodbyes, why don't you tell everybody uh where they can find you? I know there's go ask Aaron, but do you have a personal site, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, all that?

SPEAKER_01 1:35:44

I you know, the thing is I really don't. I do have you can find me on Facebook, just Aaron Quigley, you can find me. Um, if you're ready for some, you know, more than just photography, that's okay, but I'm just warning you, that's that's what happens. Um but there is for. That's what Facebook is for, yes, proving someone wrong. All right. Um, you know how well that works. So uh but but go ask Aaron has a Facebook page. Just type in go ask Aaron and you'll find it. Also, it's www.goaskarin.com. You can write to us questions that you would like us to answer at admin at goaskarin.com. Or if you have something that you want to set up with me personally, you can write to Aaron at goaskarin.com. And um you can also find me on Vimeo, although mostly what's on Vimeo are the um uh tutorials that I don't have like personal my personal video clips up there because as you told I told you, I haven't been able to get it together. Um so you you can find me. I think if you just Google go ask Aaron, you'll get a number of and do you have an online portfolio anywhere? I don't. It's really just um I it's really just Facebook and that's kind of it. I'm not really in the business of uh being a commercial photographer. Okay, okay. You know, I use my own pictures to teach with and um I paint. I'm a painter, so I uh you know I paint from them too sometimes. But uh no, I don't have a a a personal portfolio.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:13

Well, thank you so much. It has been fantastic talking to you today.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:17

Thank you guys so much, and thank you for for giving me the grace after I was so crazy late. Thank you very much. Oh, don't worry about it.

Todd 1:37:24

We're just uh we're excited to meet you in person and uh hopefully uh we'll get to well, we'll get to see you from the Maldus here shortly, but yeah, hopefully sometime we can we can all get together since we're all so cal divers anyway. So we'll oh we gotta do it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:39

We gotta do a Channel Islands trip. That'd be fun. That would be a blast.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:41

Yeah, maybe go out to the oil rigs or something.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:43

Oh yeah, oil rigs, that'd be great. All right, guys, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:47

Thanks so much. Great to meet you. Thank you, great to meet you.