Posted by Elaine on March 18, 2005 at 08:05:57:
In Reply to: Follow-up questions: UW photo courses posted by Dick Analog on March 18, 2005 at 07:30:31:
I did a Cathy Church supercourse in Cayman, and, for me it was excellent, just $$$. They are also good at diagnosing your equipment needs and after spending $$$ for the course you don't always want to hear it at the time. I did one of their trips also - it was good but not quite as educationally oriented.
Jim Church used to do great Live Aboard courses and I was fortunate to do several of them before he died. I have heard mixed reviews of other live aboard courses. The aggressor trips with the "guest teachers" are probably good.
If I were starting now I would look into the optiquatics trips that they offer on the Peace. I would also look to learn from Jack and Sue Drafahl (they write uw digital photog books). If you do lessons - go for lessons from the best that you can afford. There are several others that I would like to learn from - Norbert Wu, David Doubilet, but I think arranging that would be more difficult.
At the Scuba Show they usually have seminars offered by some well known photogs and I always liked those. Very reasonably priced and informative.
I haven't done an on line class so I can't comment on those.