Home Page The Underwater Photo Course
Home Page; Overview  

Class Time: Any time you can make it

Course Instructor: Mark Mumford

Phone: +44 1293 773195

Email: mmumford@cix.compulink.co.uk

Office Hours: Mon - Fri 19:00 - 22:00 GMT;, weekends by appointment.

Reading: See resource pages in each lesson.

Course Objectives: I have attempted to put down in writing some of the many facts, opinions, and approaches that a beginning to intermediate underwater stills photographer might find valuable and of practical use. While this course may be studied from start to finish, and is organised accordingly, it can equally be dipped into, as a sort of reference when you need reminding about one aspect of a particular subject.

Course Duration: You can take this course over whatever elapsed time you see fit, however an average student will take about 20 hours to cover all the theory modules, and the practical exercices will take an addition time, to which time for travelling and preparation should be allowed, especially depending on whether a day's diving is required.

Acquisition of Knowledge. You will given the opportunity to take a post-test quiz after every lesson that you can assess your acquisition of key concepts.

Application of Knowledge. You will apply the key concepts you have acquired by the undertaking of practical photographic exercises.

Course Structure: The Underwater Photography Course is structured into a number of lessons with a common structure. Each lesson contains:

Guiding Principles for Course:

  1. Like all experiences in life, the more you put into this course, the more you'll get out of it. Completion of assigned reading and Tutorials as scheduled, along with active engagement in the exercices given will enhance your enjoyment, learning, and almost certainly, your results.
  2. "Intellect without goodwill is apt to go astray, goodwill without intellect is apt to be impotent". (Aldous Huxley). Recognizing that neither intellect nor goodwill are alone sufficient to assure the success of most human endeavours, in this course, we will pursue the ideals of both.
  3. "Chance favours the prepared mind". (Louis Pasteur). To optimize your "preparation" for understanding vision, we will emphasize more complete understanding of fewer topics rather than comprehensive familiarity with more.
  4. "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" (Robert Browning - Andrea del Sarto). The demanding learning goals for the lecture and exercise components of this course are based on the recognition that high achievement is served well by lofty ideals.

Student Expectations:

  1. Because underwater photography is a vast topic, there is not sufficient space to discuss all topics that appear in the readings, nor are all topics fully addressed by the readings. Since the two sources of information are intended to be complementary not redundant, and a topic that is presented only in the text or only in class is not of lesser importance than any other.
  2. As instructor of the course, I will do my best to be accessible to address your concerns and problems, and to make the course as informative, fun, and rewarding an experience for you as I can. To do this, I will need your help - I can respond to your needs and concerns only if you bring them to my attention. I will be open with all correspondence, and make discussions available to all.

Examinations and Grading:

There are no exams, and no grading! I will however, in time, provide a Student Links page, which will provide links to your own results, either from individual exercices, or work undertaken subsequent to the course.

Using the net efficiently:

According to your individual arrangements with your internet service provider, you may find it appropriate to download individual lessons to your own computer for the duration of that lesson, and browse them offline. Please feel free to do so, but be aware that lessons will be updated from time to time, and check back every now and again for updated content.

Browser configuration

I have structured these pages to be as browser independant as possible. You will appreciate however that I am unable to test these pages with every version of every browser on every platform. If you do find that these pages are substantially unusable because of something that I have done, then please contact me at the address at the bottom of this page, and I will do my best to remedy it.

I have tested these pages using Internet Explorer 4. I personally set the fonts to the smaller size which I find quite readable on a 1024 x 768 screen. There is no need for you to configure your screen likewise.



This page was last updated on 05 July 1998
Please address any comments to Mark Mumford