Like most underwater photographers, I visit some dive sites over and over again. Though I know practically every sea fan on several of my favorite sites off my hometown of Key Largo, Fla., I never get tired of shooting there. Even the most familiar coral reef has potential for unusual photo ops, assuming the shooter's eye and gear bag are up to the task. Here are a few tips to add creative vision to your home turf.

Try a New Lens

Your favorite reef might be different, but if I had to choose one style of photography most productive for my hometown reefs, it would be fish photography. There are plenty of angelfish, barracuda, schooling grunts, eels and butterflyfish, thanks to a long tradition of marine conservation here in the Keys. This makes the "normal" lens the go-to optic for most photographers along these reefs. A 35mm on a Nikonos V or MotorMarine II, a 60mm lens on a housed SLR, or even the standard lens in a housed digital is right for fish portraits and small reef vignettes. Normal lenses simulate the field of view of the human eye, but the reef is packed with subjects both large and small. Even modern zoom lenses can't do it all, so creative vision is often enhanced with some new additions to the camera kit.

Think Small: Shoot Macro

Add a wide-angle lens to your arsenal to expand your view and the number of subjects you can fit into a frame.

Simply adding macro capability will open a world of new possibilities on the reef. With some camera systems, that means relegating yourself to shooting only macro for that dive, as is the case with a Nikonos extension tube set. Other cameras may offer lens choices that integrate macro capability while retaining the possibility for fish photography.

The ever-popular 60mm and 105mm Micro Nikkors offer 1:1 macro (full life-size) at minimum focus, but of course can photograph larger subjects as well. Many of the prosumer digitals focus very close, generally to within a few inches, but there are supplementary optics that can be added under water to enhance the close-up capability, allowing macro imaging. Ikelite, Sea & Sea, Pioneer and Light & Motion all have bayonet mount systems on their housing ports so an external magnifying lens can be added. For those using housed SLRs, both Nexus (www.nexusamerica.com) and Backscatter (www.backscatter.com) have wet diopters than can be affixed to the macro port to bring magnifications even greater than 1:1 for super-macro.

Macro photography is such a powerful tool that virtually all camera systems offer some relatively inexpensive means to facilitate this option. Whatever tool brings macro capability to your system, you'll have to change your normal techniques for both image capture and subject selection drastically. Instead of scanning the horizon for the next fish to photograph, successful macro shooters immerse themselves in the nearby minutiae. The best macro photographers swim slowly and examine each square meter of reef to find subjects. They study the behavior of the small creatures that inhabit the reef and patiently approach their subject, hoping to get close enough to fill the frame with a creature the size of a peanut. The techniques of macro photography are relatively simple and require harmony of aperture and strobe power relative to distance. The far more challenging aspect is finding the creatures, and that is all about selective vision and an awareness of the subject's habits and habitats.

Think Big: Shoot Wide

At the other extreme, the wide-angle lens also opens up new vistas. Obviously, it offers the opportunity to shoot large marine life, diver portraits and sweeping views of the reef itself. But the best wide-angle images will have a clearly defined central subject that may be highlighted by creative application of the strobe, or perhaps by the forced perspective of proximity. Rarely will a wide monochromatic view of the reef hold much interest.

Howard Hall's classic Guide to Successful Underwater Photography is inspirational in this regard and suggests a variety of ways to approach wide-angle photography creatively:

SILHOUETTE: Shooting an upward view with a bold central subject can add diversity to your portfolio. Use available light to silhouette. The ball of sun can make a strong compositional element, and of course this technique can be combined with a foreground illuminated by strobe. Likewise, you can use available light alone to illustrate large subjects like a shipwreck or marine life in shallow water. While macro or fish photography may be all about strobe power, TTL and f-stop, the ambient light level is far more important in these kinds of shots.

DIVER PORTRAITS: Incorporating divers in a wide-angle shot provides a sense of scale and creates "relatability." Viewers understand that if the diver in the photograph was there in that beautiful place, having that wonderful experience, they could be there too. Communication and cooperation with your dive model beforehand is preferable (and far more productive) to trying to capture a random diver fly-by.

LARGE MARINE LIFE: The key to photographing big animals is to place yourself where the creatures are likely to be. If you want to photograph humpbacks in the wild, plan a trip to the Silver Banks of the Dominican Republic in February or March. If you want white sharks, try Guadalupe in October or November. For spotted dolphins, try White Sand Ridge off West End Grand Bahama in the summer. There are enough divers traveling the world to know with some level of reliability where the big creatures are likely to be and when. It can happen on more familiar reefs, but that's likely to be lucky happenstance. With any luck you'll have the right lens, proximity and a shot or two left in your camera when it happens.

CLOSE-FOCUS WIDE-ANGLE: As Hall writes, close-focus wide-angle photography combines "the beautifully rich colors of a macro shot combined with the expansiveness of wide-angle available light and silhouette photography." Getting close to a subject with wide-angle also changes the perspective dramatically. A medium-sized turtle in the foreground can appear dramatic and gigantic with a diver in the background to provide size reference. A cluster of foreground soft coral artfully illuminated with strobe can dominate a wide-angle scenic. Even a lowly sea fan, one you've swum past a hundred times before, can be a powerful element of composition using the close-focus wide-angle technique.

Try a New Time of Day

We most often dive the reef at mid-day because it is most convenient for dive boat schedules. But it may not be the most dramatic time of day. In the early morning and late afternoon, the coral reef is changing guard. New creatures are prowling, and others become more accessible as they begin their somnambulant state. With the sun lower on the horizon, it is easier to get the ball of sun in position to be a compositional element in the photograph.

Of course, for something entirely different, try night diving. Once the sun sets, the same coral reef, the one you've visited a hundred times before, will offer a whole new world, rich with unique photo opportunities.