05/31/2026
If you like cruising and traveling, you may also want to follow this author! His underwater photography is amazing!
If there's one thing underwater photography has taught me, it's patience.
Not because I wanted to become a more patient person.
It was forced upon me.
The ocean doesn't care what camera you're using. It doesn't care that you've traveled thousands of miles for a particular shot. It doesn't care that this is your only chance to dive a certain site.
The ocean operates on its own schedule.
I've spent entire dives searching for a subject and never found it. I've watched turtles disappear just before I was close enough for the photograph. I've had wildlife completely ignore me after twenty minutes of careful positioning.
And yet, every once in a while, everything comes together.
A shark appears out of the blue.
A sea lion decides you're interesting.
A photograph you've imagined for years suddenly exists.
The funny thing is that those moments usually happen when I stop forcing them.
I've discovered the same thing applies to creative work.
Books, photography, and life rarely happen on the schedule we want. Sometimes the work is simply showing up, paying attention, and continuing to move forward even when the results aren't immediately visible.
The ocean taught me that.
It took a while for the lesson to sink in.
For anyone interested, I expanded this thought into a longer article on my website:
https://chrismckennabooks.com/blog/what-underwater-photography-taught-me-about-patience/d3flf9
