Nicholas Remy - The Underwater Club

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Matt Waters: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Scuba

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go Podcast where we explore the fascinating world of Scuba

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diving and ocean exploration. This week we are talking

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photography and rebreathers with multi award winning

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photographer, Nicholas roaming. With a passion for the ocean and

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its inhabitants. Nicholas captures the beauty of the

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underwater world through his lens and is eager to share his

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art with fellow enthusiasts. However, Nicholas is not just a

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photographer, but a bit of a super geek. He analyses

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situations, technical products, heck, anything that needs

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analysing gets analysed. He also loves to help aspiring

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photographers capture that perfect underwater image. And so

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with his expertise in underwater photography, love for the ocean,

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and abilities to formulate plans and procedures, he has created

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the underwater club. Now, the underwater club is an online

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community that anyone can subscribe to, regardless of your

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level of experience. Over the last couple of years, he has

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tirelessly devoted himself to producing detailed bite size

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videos and a multitude of classes to share his expertise

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with all club members. Welcome to the show, buddy.

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Nicholas Remy: Thank you, Matt. Nice to meet you in person.

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Matt Waters: It's been a while I think I've been I've been

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watching what you and Lena have been doing since I got to

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Sydney, which is what almost five years now. I think

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Nicholas Remy: you're right. I think we've been I think we've

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got to Sydney sort of a decent time though. Yeah, yeah. Five

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years ago, something like that. Yeah.

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Matt Waters: Yeah. Well, I only came for a visit initially. And

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then hey, presto, here we are. Yeah, right. Why don't you start

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off the show. Let's have a little bit about you. Why are we

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sat here and gonna talk about stuff?

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Nicholas Remy: Okay. Well, my name is Nikolas Remy. A French

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born gay. I'm 39 years old now. What can I say? I've got a

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lovely two Cheeky monkeys at home, keeping me busy and

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entertained.

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Matt Waters: By Cheeky monkeys, you mean kids? Right?

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Nicholas Remy: wasn't clear. And I've got a wife as well, who

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happens to be a diver, underwater photographer and

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entered river diver as well. Yeah. So I have lots of things

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in common. And yeah, the main reason I came the same time as

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you to Sydney was essentially my passion for diving. And yeah,

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look, a few years later, I decided to make underwater

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photography a full time thing for myself. And I guess that has

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to do with the fact the fact that we're talking now. Yeah,

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but Yeah, happy days. Yeah,

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Matt Waters: yeah. The thing that caught my attention when

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you were doing all the socials, because obviously, when you get

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bored in an evening, we all do it. We just got to scroll

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through socials, your photos pop up, and you delve a little bit

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deeper. And the first thing I remember seeing of you guys, and

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I mean, yourself, and Lena was going dive in getting these

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amazing, amazing shots. But you were doing it on rebreathers. So

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that was the different thing that caught my attention. Right?

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Initially, it wasn't the shots initially, it was the fact you

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were doing it on rebury. That's because obviously, I've been

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told by many people, if you're on a rebreather, there's no

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bubble as you get closer to the critters, blah, blah, blah,

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blah, blah. It's exactly what you've been doing. Right?

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Nicholas Remy: That's right. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we reverse,

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really, that the the photographer's best friends, as

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long as I guess you can, you know, sort of keep your

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attention, giving them a little bit of attention that they need

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to sort of keep diving safe. They're just fantastic for for

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for underwater photography. I mean, you get closer to

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wildlife, you spend much more time in the water, you don't

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have to worry too much about, you know, you don't have to

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worry so much about things like caravans. The opportunities are

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very different. And that's, yeah, that's why we both we will

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reproduce on a regular basis. Every every time we dive

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basically.

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Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. And you gotta get a couple of hours on

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the water as well. Yeah,

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Nicholas Remy: I mean, it's, it has to do a little bit with the

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Cheeky monkeys I talked about at the beginning. We we've been

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together and I much before we had, you know, projects of

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starting a family diving has been our thing since nearly the

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beginning. And at some point, we're like, okay, we would like

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to have kids together. And then, you know, we looked around what

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others were doing, and usually they were giving up on diving or

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sort of, you know, full on passion, right? And then

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without, okay, there's lots of, I guess, life adjustments we're

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very much willing to do, but stopping diving is not an option

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at all. So we're thinking, okay, and the thing is, I guess if

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there's one person in the relationship diving, not the

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other, you can always, you know, lock some time for you and have

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a bit of me time, but we wanted to keep diving together. And we

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thought, okay, what's our young parent life going to be like in

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terms of diving? And we thought, we need to just look at time for

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diving Every weekend, we were both working full time. So every

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weekend, there will be a time for that where we won't be

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parents will be diverse. And we said, well, let's say Saturday

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morning, we have to look to some time, Saturday morning, we'll

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find a babysitter, and maybe we'll trust them with the kids

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for Health Day, how they seemed like, what we were comfortable

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to do. Not not a full day, but have they seemed reasonable. And

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then we said, okay, so if we leave the kids to the

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babysitter, we drive to wherever is the shortest dive site, we go

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in the water, we dive, well, one hour on the boat, maybe, then we

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want to have another dive, we all do service interval, we

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actually don't have time. And we don't want our dive routine to

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be one hour per week. So we're like, Okay, what else could we

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do? Well, to save time, you save time by not exiting the water,

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not preparing your gear, not changing things and all that.

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And long story short, you know, time after time, we said, Okay,

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well, why don't we just spend a good three hours in the water.

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And this way we make 100%, the most of the time that we're

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giving ourselves to keep on enjoying diving. And that's what

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took us the

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Matt Waters: happy days. So the bank balances well, in the

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negatives, having bought a couple of rebreathers.

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Nicholas Remy: Yeah, and that's, that's probably a thing about,

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about us as divers. When I chat with, you know, other divers

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very quickly, you start talking about travel, where you've been

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and all that. And I think I've been diving now since 16 years,

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something like that. And I think people are always surprised to

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see how little I have travelled, you know, compared to how long

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I've been diving. And that's because, yeah, our live setup

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has been around. How can we lock in as much diving hours as we

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can per week. And that may imply, you know, not being able

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to travel so easily outside? Yeah. And that's why Sydney so

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so that's also why we came to Sydney. Because we realised that

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well, if we only have going to dive three hours per week in one

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shot, and we have to be in a city that's big enough for both

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of us to find a job. Yeah. Where in the world could that be? And

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Sydney ticks the box really well for those things.

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Matt Waters: Nice one. Nice one. What does it was it Lena does

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then what's the what's the job that she's doing?

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Nicholas Remy: She's smoking in it. She's doing project

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management. Nice.

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Matt Waters: Okay, so does she get to choose like Project

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lengths and then just have a little bit of time off and crack

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on with it, load more dive in and then pick up the next job.

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For

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Nicholas Remy: now, I think that would be a good thing for her.

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That would be a great setup for her. But for now what she's

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doing is she's a full time employee. Okay, so it's more,

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it's more a weekend thing for her plus the odd trip every year

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or something like that. Yeah,

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Matt Waters: yeah. And what were you doing before you went full

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time on what we're going to talk about?

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Nicholas Remy: Yeah, I was doing at CMOS Linna. Actually, we, we

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started working in the same company. And we've been doing it

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together, sort of together for a few years, until I finally

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choose to switch back.

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Matt Waters: Yeah, run away. So where did it all start? Then?

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Because you mentioned you've been driving for 16 years? Yep.

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What did you learn? Um,

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Nicholas Remy: so funnily enough, not too far from here.

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Okay. So, long time ago, we started dating back in the day

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we were, we were studying in the same engineering school back in

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France. And the school had an exchange programmes with a few

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universities and one of them was Wollongong University. All

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right, and we thought, wow, Australia, Hey, that sounds you

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know, I had a family history of, you know, being an expat living

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abroad. And after a few years in France, being a student doing

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those things, I was like, yeah, it tickles me. I want to go

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travel again. And, and some guy from the same engineering school

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came back from Wollongong and you say, Wow, guys, you have you

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can believe in the lifestyle there. It's so amazing. And all

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that. And I spoke with him and I was like, you have to go and

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that sounds fantastic. And lucky for me, Lena was didn't have

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much, much experience travelling at the time, but she said, Oh,

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you're going we'll go with you. Okay, you know, for for, you

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know, we were just a young young couple with not so much history,

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but then she said, I'll go as well. Alright. And then we

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jumped on a plane to Australia. And a bit before we did that,

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actually. She told me Hey, did you ever try Scuba diving? And

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I'm like, No, but I've always meant to at some point, you

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know, probably and she said, You know what, Australia apparently

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is pretty good for that. Like, Ah, okay. And, yeah, long story

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short, we ended up in Wollongong. And, I mean, before

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that, we were travelling a little bit before settling down

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here. And at some point on the trip, it was my birthday. And

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such a lovely girlfriend. She had planned to try die for me

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when she didn't know. And then we were in Kangaroo Island and

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she said, hey, you know what? Tomorrow we're going to Dave,

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we're going to be this guy here. He's going to teach us and we're

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going to dive brilliant. No, I was terrified. You know, I was

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like decompression sickness, how am I going to cope with the

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safety stubs and all those things? I was very stressed

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actually. And then he took us to a dazzling two metres depth, you

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know, and I managed to survive and a lot of these

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Matt Waters: brilliant and never looked back,

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Nicholas Remy: never looked back. I mean, then we went to

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settle down in Wollongong we learnt diving investment not too

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far from here. Yeah. Loved it. Lots of diving during the year.

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And then we went back to France because family reasons,

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essentially. And then we dove essentially in the Mediterranean

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Sea for about 10 years until we came back here.

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Matt Waters: Okay. Okay. What do you see in the med?

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Nicholas Remy: Ye that much?

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Matt Waters: Plenty of RX. Yeah.

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Nicholas Remy: Some RX? Yeah, definitely good RX. Yeah, the

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thing is, I'm sure the med has potential to be sensational. But

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it's a sea that has been surrounded by so many people.

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For a long time over history. There's been lots of

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overfishing, pollution at times where we didn't know better, we

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didn't know what we were doing. And you can see the results. So

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back in Hong Kong, we were diving invest points. You know,

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we jump in the gutter, one of the popular spots today. And

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often enough, you will see a sea dragon, you would see a big blue

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grouper coming right at your face. A big blue ray at a time

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when I was very short. sighted. Yeah, yep. short sighted. But

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you didn't need a prescription mess because the things were so

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massive that you will see anyways, right? Yeah. And then

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we go to France will end next to Cannes, we find the dive shop

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they take as diving. And for young divers, we're just open

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water certified. You know, we're not used to going deep and doing

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those things. The guy pulls us down from zero to 14 metres very

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fast. And we are like, you know, a bit stressed. But okay. And

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we're thinking that we're going to 40 metres, we're going to

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have to tell that out to all our dive buddies, and I'm sure we're

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going to see some crazy things at 40 metres, where we saw one

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lobster, and maybe two siblings, and that was it. They were like,

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Oh, crap. And then we asked ourselves are we actually going

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to keep diving or do we just keep on the regular basis? Or do

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we keep that for you know, the trip to the Red Sea once a year

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and that's it. But eventually we decided we really liked being in

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the water and, you know, that's for we kept looking diving, but

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for sure the the med as a few as a few things we really liked,

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you know, big dramatic landscapes. Nice gorgonians but

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from a wildlife perspective, get not not comparable to the

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Matt Waters: or what's your what's your favourite so far?

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Wildlife?

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Nicholas Remy: Like animal? Ah, I think I there's a few but I

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think I really liked the I was going to say with your leafy

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lettuce, the leafy Seadragon

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Matt Waters: PVC dragon.

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Nicholas Remy: Yeah, so lovely.

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Matt Waters: I've yet to take those off. We're gonna go we're

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gonna go this year, but I've got Galapagos trips. So that's where

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we go next year. Yeah, it's not. It's not a bad excuse not to go

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to the South Australia. Yeah.

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Nicholas Remy: And it's really easy to go. I mean, you as long

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as you know where to go. We can talk about that. It's from the

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shore shadow, easy and beautiful creatures.

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Matt Waters: I think that's the beauty here as well. You've just

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mentioned depth. But along the coastlines here in Australia,

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you don't need a lot of depth to say such a vast array of

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critters and creatures. Biodiversity is insane. And

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Nicholas Remy: we were really fortunate. I've read somewhere

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that in Sydney Harbour Sydney's natural harbour there's more

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fish species than in the world Mediterranean.

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Matt Waters: That doesn't surprise me. Yeah, there

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probably is more fish in my bath that I don't own than what's in

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the Mediterranean.

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Nicholas Remy: Yeah, possibly. Now we've very gifted on this. I

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have landed in Sydney, like I said, more than five years ago,

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a bit more than five years ago now. And I thought, okay,

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there's like, what 30 shore dive sites, that will certainly be a

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good, good basis to keep us entertained. And then a bunch of

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other boat dives. And we're thinking okay, and there's some

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wreck dives as well. And in those five years, I think I've

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done one, maybe two bad days and that's it, because they're not

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good but because the show diving is so good, so spectacular, that

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you know for what I do, which is photography. I enjoy so much

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going there spending three hours or even even more and you know,

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having those amazing, amazing things to further if

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Matt Waters: I'm making the most of this week because my other

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half jazz, she's away in New Zealand for the week with work,

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right? So I'm gonna go and hit Clifton gardens a few times and

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just spend all the time I'm in the world on my camera and

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macro. Because she's not a massive macro fan. So she gets

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bored if I'm taking a shot so

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Nicholas Remy: much time. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, especially that

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time of the year the water is very warm. Seven,

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Matt Waters: while speaking to Ken, Ken Tang pillar. Oh, this

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one. I think they did a night dive on Saturday, it was like

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2021 degrees. Nice. I'm not even gonna bother with a wetsuit.

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I'll just pull the shark skin on.

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Nicholas Remy: Yeah, that is. But I've been there yesterday

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evening, actually. Oh, yeah. So by the way, if, if I'm asking

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you to repeat something, I may still have water in between the

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ears. So don't don't take offence.

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Matt Waters: That's all right. Like mine on age.

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Nicholas Remy: But um, yeah, there was fantastic bit a bit

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murky, but there's always so much to see.

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Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah, to get all the usual critters. Yeah.

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Nicholas Remy: And that's a good time in the year for angler fish

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for fish. And that's a time where this is you can see them

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meeting or you know, having a bit of an interesting behaviour.

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And yesterday evening, Linda showed me one push me to

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actually just next to each other. And it was like, Gee,

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that might be the moment that might be the time a year or one

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very lovely yellow with, like stripes on his hands. And

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another one, which was more pale pink with dark brown stripes

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next to each other. So I started taking photos and waiting but

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nothing happened. Well, that's what they did. So if you go in

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the main domain GT dementia dissection, where most of the

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fishermans are, if you look towards the inside of the Hubble

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that would be on the pillars on the right. If they don't move

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there will be there.

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Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. Okay. I'll have a look. We went out

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there last week. And there was there were two side by side down

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towards the end of the jetty a yellow one and a black one, much

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smaller black one. If they weren't getting jiggy, jiggy,

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migraine, no official like bliss, anything.

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Nicholas Remy: But the thing is that it's when they finish the

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it's it's dinnertime. Yeah.

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Matt Waters: Ciao. Literally. Yeah. Okay, cool. Okay, so the

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underwater club? Yes. What's this all about?

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Nicholas Remy: So, the underwater club is, is is a big

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term in my relationship with diving and underwater

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photography. Many years, it's all been about just enjoying

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myself taking photos. And you know, the best way I could spend

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my time was being in the wearer taking photos. And the next best

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way was possibly being next to Linda while she was taking

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photos, and perhaps I was looking for, you know, stuff for

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her to photograph watching over her, helping her with lighting

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and doing those things together. Yeah, but that was really that

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was that was really neat. And then COVID came, and like

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everyone had a bit more, a bit less work, actually, yeah, but a

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bit of more free time on my on my hands, a good time to a good

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time to reflect. And I had, I guess I had grown a little bit

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frustrated that myself on the way I had, I was managing my

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time. So I came to Australia to enjoy diving in Sydney,

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essentially, because I knew it was so good, plus the odd dive

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trip once a year maybe. And then I realised that guess what

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diving is really so good. And we know about it because we

00:18:25
experience it. And we have a lovely community of people with

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the visibility group in Facebook, where you can exchange

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tips share what you've seen in a dive. So you know what's

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happening there in the community, in the dive sites.

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And because of the routines that we had managed to set up, you

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know, around our kids, our dive was going to be Saturday

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morning, and that's it. So if for whatever reason, Saturday

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was a crappy time to dive, you know, tire change, big rain,

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whatever the case might be your big swell in the wrong

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direction. That's where we're going to dive if there was some

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crazy good conditions or some interesting wildlife spotty, the

00:19:00
middle of the week, or on Sunday evening. Too bad too sad. I

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couldn't go diving. And I was working a lot. my corporate job

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was very, very demanding. And very interesting at the same

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time, but busy days with customers during during the

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normal nine to five and busy evenings because it's a I used

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to work for a European company. So in the evenings, I was

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catching up with colleagues with Europe. So very, very packed

00:19:25
lifestyle. And I realised at some point that, you know, in a

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regular week, there was very few time for me to say hey, I really

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want to do what I want to do, which is more diving. And it was

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thinking again, I chose to become the father. I love my

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Cheeky monkeys. And it just to have this IT job. Well, it's a

00:19:46
great job, but I love my kids even more. So if there's one

00:19:48
thing I'm going to change, it's the job and the public key. How

00:19:53
can I you know, make a living around underwater photography

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and And nowadays, as you as you know, you can't, you can't

00:20:06
really pay all your bills by just setting photos. That is

00:20:10
something that was possible maybe 20 years ago. But

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nowadays, you have to do a few different things to, to make up

00:20:17
your new lifestyle, basically. So I started to think, what are

00:20:21
some of the things that I'm good at, and that I would enjoy doing

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for the time that I'm not taking photos in my new life. And it

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struck me that in all, all the all the jobs I've had, during my

00:20:35
corporate career, there was one thing in common, very, very

00:20:40
different jobs. But one thing is common, is that I was on a

00:20:44
regular basis having to explain complex topics, in a simple way.

00:20:50
Because the person I was going to explain it to was less

00:20:53
technical or less expert me on the topic. And, and I guess that

00:20:57
was my talent, there was something I was good at doing.

00:21:00
And I realised as well, that was something I really liked to

00:21:02
doing. I really enjoyed that process to, you know, be with

00:21:07
the person, hear their questions, put myself in their

00:21:11
shoes, and see, okay, how can I take that person with me to

00:21:15
understanding this new thing that they need to understand? I

00:21:18
really enjoyed that process. So then I told myself, well, I'm

00:21:21
going to teach underwater photography, that's, that's

00:21:24
something I would enjoy doing a lot. And then came the question.

00:21:29
And this took this process took quite a few months to get the

00:21:33
final ID, but dedicated came the question of, how am I going to

00:21:37
teach. So typical example. There's a few underwater

00:21:42
photographers teaching this way you organise a trip, you take,

00:21:46
you take, you know, a number of students on a trip with you.

00:21:49
When you're on the trip, you have workshops, you have

00:21:52
classes, you show them techniques, and you explain a

00:21:54
few things. And that is something I'm going to do on a

00:21:57
case by case basis. For example, in next January, I'm going to do

00:22:02
that with Linda resort during 10 days. But that's going to be

00:22:07
another thing, because I've realised that there is another

00:22:10
way to learn underwater photography, which is

00:22:13
essentially how I've learned but upgraded in a way. So

00:22:18
essentially, the, the observation I came to was that

00:22:24
all the moments where I learned, I learned a lot with reading

00:22:28
books, I'm very analytical person. So I guess that that's

00:22:32
how I'm comfortable learning. And I realised that all the aha

00:22:37
moments where I realised that I've been improved, I've been

00:22:42
able to master a new technique to take better photos of the

00:22:45
subject or the situations, the aha moments was not underwater,

00:22:50
the aha moment attends at home, talking with someone in the bar,

00:22:55
in between dives. In the water was the time where I would test

00:22:59
the idea that I had before, hey, if I would put my stroke this

00:23:02
way, I'm going to project the animal's shadows here, then

00:23:06
doing that I'm going to help the silhouette of the animal pop out

00:23:10
from the background will be less distracting. So I had all these

00:23:14
ideas in between dives. And then it will just be a case of

00:23:16
practising in the world to just test the ideas that test my

00:23:20
understanding was okay. And then that's how I came down to the

00:23:24
idea of founding, creating the underwater club. So the

00:23:28
underwater club is in simple terms. It's an online underwater

00:23:33
photography school, where I've created I've put basically

00:23:38
everything I know in terms of underwater photography, in the

00:23:42
format of essentially video lessons. And, and it's about to

00:23:47
go live in a few weeks time now.

00:23:49
Matt Waters: Yeah, congratulations, a lot of hard

00:23:52
work on it.

00:23:53
Nicholas Remy: Yeah. When we started, I had to, you know, of

00:23:58
course, asking his opinion a few times, because there will be a

00:24:02
bit of time during which he would have, you know, to cope

00:24:05
with me not having an income and investing my time on something

00:24:09
else. Yeah. Which he really liked the ID. The only thing is

00:24:12
at the beginning, I told her, Okay, I'm going to do a bit of

00:24:16
concept and design on the website, you know, make sure I

00:24:18
have the right components. I know how to build it. And then

00:24:21
there will be a time where I'm going to put together these,

00:24:24
these online courses. I'm going to script them. I'm going to

00:24:28
film the videos, I'm going to edit them and all that. And then

00:24:32
you know, just package it on the website launch and that's it.

00:24:34
The gender workload is life. And I told her, yeah, the course is

00:24:39
production. It's going to take about five to six weeks. She

00:24:45
said okay, yep, that's fine. We can we can deal with that. Okay.

00:24:48
It took a year and a half.

00:24:53
Matt Waters: Hey, she's not divorced, so you must be doing

00:24:55
something right.

00:24:56
Nicholas Remy: It's something. Yeah, I was very nervous to tell

00:24:59
him where or hadn't let's say I had registered the first

00:25:03
recorded the first course. And I realised that we need much more

00:25:07
time to do the whole thing again to her. I said, Look, this is

00:25:10
what I've been doing. This is the time I've taken to record

00:25:16
these first few lessons. For example, at the beginning, when

00:25:19
we, when we drafted the, the plan of the courses and the

00:25:23
lessons, we would say, okay, there will be a lesson on, let's

00:25:29
say, portrait photography, how do you turn? You know, how do

00:25:33
you move away from just an ID shot of a fish into a report

00:25:36
went with character. And I said, well, the video is probably

00:25:40
going to be three minutes long, you know, a script detail, speak

00:25:44
quickly, and three minutes that that's it. And then 40 minutes

00:25:47
of video, you need selections too much time to film, but

00:25:49
that's going to be quick enough. The video is about 15 minutes,

00:25:53
because there's actually so much to say on the topic, especially

00:25:56
if you want the person listening to be able to, you know, not be

00:26:00
lost in translation or not lose track of what's being being

00:26:03
said. So, I asked her, I said, Do you still want to move

00:26:07
forward? Are you still happy for me to spend well, much more time

00:26:10
in building this? And she looked at all the plan I put together?

00:26:14
And she said, Well, we've everything you've scripted here,

00:26:18
there's enough to fill two or maybe three underwater

00:26:20
photography books. So you don't write two or three books in one

00:26:24
month. It does take time. So yeah, that no, that makes sense.

00:26:28
Keep going. And you know, thumbs up, then they went.

00:26:33
Matt Waters: As that saying goes behind every good man, there's

00:26:37
an even better woman. And I'm just sitting here listening to

00:26:41
you talk through this. And I have exactly the same at home.

00:26:45
With reconstructing my travel company and, and jazz, just keep

00:26:49
going, keep going, keep going. And those Fuckit moments where

00:26:53
you've had a shit day and walk away from the computer, there's

00:26:56
always she's always there to say, All right, I will come back

00:26:59
to it tomorrow. Keep going.

00:27:01
Nicholas Remy: We're lucky and we are very, very lucky. It's

00:27:04
that it's that emotional support, I mean, to start so

00:27:06
that that sounding board you have as well, not being just

00:27:09
with yourself testing the ideas. And I mean, I also have tested

00:27:14
quite a few ideas with with friends. But the thing is with

00:27:17
friends, people sometimes are just polite. Yes. So you know,

00:27:20
you don't you don't you're not always sure that exactly how

00:27:23
they how they feel. Although I did ask for you know, brutally

00:27:27
honest feedback and and I've got some of it. I have tested the

00:27:31
ideas and the format, interviewing a few people, quite

00:27:34
a few people actually a while ago, including yourself. Yep, I

00:27:37
remember. Yeah, but but definitely having a little

00:27:41
support for a number of a number of many ways actually has been

00:27:45
fantastic.

00:27:47
Matt Waters: I just want to say that person. So excuse me. So

00:27:56
with with regards to the dive in and the photography, did the

00:28:02
photography start online before or did the dive in introduce you

00:28:05
to photography,

00:28:07
Nicholas Remy: and the photography started just

00:28:09
essentially before, but just just a little bit before? I came

00:28:12
very late to photography are you doing? Yeah, you're right. But I

00:28:19
want to hear how you started as well. But um, I guess for me, I

00:28:24
used to play around with my mom's camera when it was a kid,

00:28:27
you know, old film camera, and they enjoyed it. But also

00:28:30
remember from from the time that the camera was only capable of

00:28:34
taking Okay, shots during the day. If it was, you know, dinner

00:28:39
time, it was a bit dark in the place. Unless you had the flush

00:28:43
going on. Everything didn't look good, basically. And you've had

00:28:46
the flush going on people had a funny face. It just didn't

00:28:49
affect Well, I don't really like the sort of I don't really like

00:28:55
the sort of results that the camera can take in many

00:28:58
situations. So I went a bit away from from a from photography at

00:29:02
the time. And then, I guess, one year before we moved to

00:29:07
Australia as the first time as students, I stumbled upon a

00:29:12
photography magazine, you know, in in the station about it out

00:29:18
of curiosity, because I was going to take the train with

00:29:20
Lynne at the time. And, you know, we didn't have

00:29:23
smartphones, iPhones, I was going to get bored with the

00:29:25
magazine to write something that made us so different. That's

00:29:30
good to get bored. Sometimes it is fantastic. But anyway, so I

00:29:36
pulled this magazine. I can't remember why. But it was in

00:29:39
France. It was the biggest pornographic magazine and the

00:29:42
most popular one. So the name The name meant something for me.

00:29:45
And then I read this article, and it was about some guy at the

00:29:48
time that he was what 2006 So it was, you know, digital seminars

00:29:55
were starting to become more popular and more affordable for

00:29:58
people. And someone was doing Something really interesting. He

00:30:01
had device here designed a device where he could what was

00:30:10
it, he was going to pop a champagne bottle. And there was

00:30:13
a device going to capture the sound of the popping and trigger

00:30:19
a very very fast flash that was going to freeze the motion of

00:30:24
that the champion of the cork article, yeah, the cork

00:30:28
instrumentation and you will be able to photograph it. And I saw

00:30:32
this crazy photo where you have the cork frozen with the

00:30:36
champion coming and the guy did something else he did like used

00:30:42
like, like, again, not not again, with big bullets, the

00:30:45
small one, you know what I mean? Or like a little pellet. Yeah,

00:30:47
pellet pellet gun to shoot on, dices on the few objects, and it

00:30:51
would capture crazy motion where the pellet starts to crush on

00:30:55
the dice. Okay, so not so artistic, but very interesting,

00:30:59
technically. And it was like GE cameras have come a long way.

00:31:03
That's really cool. And it was more of my, I guess, my

00:31:05
technical mindset that was interested in the in the science

00:31:08
and and all that. So I was like, okay, that's really cool. You

00:31:11
can really have fun with those things. No. And then I started

00:31:13
reading more magazines. And I got into just the technicalities

00:31:16
at the beginning was like, okay, and then I started reading the

00:31:21
reader's courier section of the magazine where people would send

00:31:25
photos and, and the journalist would critique the photos. There

00:31:29
was like, Okay, that's interesting composition that I

00:31:31
started to get into it. And but at the time, it was just, it was

00:31:36
just land photography, but I was really getting hooked. And, and

00:31:40
then Linda told me this this time when we were booking our

00:31:43
tickets to Australia, and she said, Hey, did you know that

00:31:45
Australia was really good for diving? And it was like, Okay,

00:31:49
I've always been fascinated by the water. I've always I grew up

00:31:53
in Africa, in in a place where I was not far from the sea. But we

00:31:57
only had big rolling waves. So there was never a place where

00:32:01
the weather was clear for me to go snorkelling. So I've always

00:32:04
meant all my childhood to go and see what was there. There was no

00:32:08
clear weather for me to go. Work in Africa, Cameroon.

00:32:12
Matt Waters: Oh, really? That's a random one. How do you end up

00:32:15
there?

00:32:16
Nicholas Remy: My parents were working there. Okay. Yeah. So

00:32:19
childhood in Cameroon, there was a river by the place we, in my

00:32:23
early years, we were living in, in the, in the bush in the

00:32:26
jungle, there was a nice river with nice fish going there.

00:32:30
Sometimes a snake, sometimes a few other animals. But again,

00:32:34
the river was murky, and not very safe to swim into for other

00:32:37
reasons as well. So crocodiles and stuff like that, right? So

00:32:41
so I've had all these childhood where I wanted to get in the

00:32:44
water, but I couldn't. So the only thing I could do is just,

00:32:46
you know, walk on the rocks, look in the puddles be like, oh,

00:32:49
there's a fish. There's a crab and being excited about that. So

00:32:52
when you say diving, I was like, Yeah, that sounds really scary.

00:32:55
But at some point, I do want to do something like that. I do.

00:32:59
And I was getting hooked. We've learned photography. And before

00:33:03
we could go to Australia, I had an internship for six months

00:33:06
working in, in an IT company as well in Paris back in the days.

00:33:10
And so I was having was going to spend six months, every day, one

00:33:14
hour commute in the in the metro train. And I thought, Okay, I've

00:33:19
learned a fair bit about photography, with magazines, and

00:33:22
all that. If I'm going to go diving, I might as well learn

00:33:25
underwater photography. And then I picked the first book, a book

00:33:29
with 150 pages of underwater photography. And I read it in

00:33:33
the in the daily commute, and was like, that's fantastic.

00:33:36
That's I was really getting hooked. And I finished the first

00:33:40
book, which was like the beginner level book. Then I

00:33:42
bought the advanced book, and I read it as well. It was like,

00:33:46
wow, split shots, macro shots, before getting in the water

00:33:49
before getting certified. Yeah. Yeah, so I was I was getting

00:33:54
hooked in a very twisted way. But yeah, by the time I got

00:33:58
certified, I knew how to use an underwater camera. I just didn't

00:34:01
have one.

00:34:02
Matt Waters: Yeah, that's, that's the problem. What was the

00:34:05
first one you got?

00:34:07
Nicholas Remy: It was a good one, though. It was the Nikon D

00:34:10
300. I was I was so so hooked. So we had a little comeback to

00:34:16
the camera, and I for for our most of our time in Australia.

00:34:20
But then I had a side job, you know, after the university so I

00:34:25
could save a bit of money. And I was clear that I wanted the

00:34:28
proper DSLR so I saved all that money. And then when I could

00:34:32
finally afford it, bang Detroit 100 And like five lenses. Yeah.

00:34:37
And it was so crazy excited about, you know, all the

00:34:40
photography time that whenever I would go somewhere, had a bag

00:34:43
full of all the lenses, which is totally nonsense because there's

00:34:47
no place where you're going to use a macro lens, a short macro

00:34:50
lens, a long macro lens, a wide angle lens, a fisheye lens and a

00:34:52
portrait lens and a telephoto lens, right. But it was carrying

00:34:55
the whole thing. Sometimes it was like gee, it's really heavy.

00:35:00
One time we were stepping in on the way back to France with Lena

00:35:03
in Hong Kong for a few days, we had a bit of vacation in Hong

00:35:06
Kong. And I loved the town. We had fantastic time there. But

00:35:11
then I realised that it was really hot. And it was carrying

00:35:13
what 10 kilogrammes of photography gear in my backpack.

00:35:17
And there was not a fly. No, Hong Kong is very concrete,

00:35:22
right? There's no birds. There's no, I couldn't see much flies in

00:35:25
the city. And then I realised, man, maybe I don't need that

00:35:28
macro lenses to macro lenses in my bag after all.

00:35:31
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've done the same after I've

00:35:35
travelled with all these lenses. And you spent two or three weeks

00:35:39
away and come back and realise you've only used one lens in the

00:35:41
entire time that you've been away? Yeah, yeah. It's a steep

00:35:45
learning curve.

00:35:47
Nicholas Remy: We got, I guess you said the beginning when you

00:35:49
when you get when you get the hook, right? You see all those

00:35:52
nice photos. You know, Sky photography, animals, portraits,

00:35:57
black and white weddings, wildlife in Israel, those things

00:36:01
and when you do everything, then you realise that good especially

00:36:05
somehow to get really good at something.

00:36:08
Matt Waters: I've learned very quickly to think about what I'm

00:36:11
going out to do. And there's always gonna be something you

00:36:14
want us to photograph that you've got the right lens for,

00:36:16
but it's better than carrying that 10 kilos. Yeah.

00:36:22
Nicholas Remy: How did you get into photography yourself?

00:36:25
Matt Waters: Very similar to you to be honest. Yeah. Yeah, I

00:36:27
didn't go balls out and spend 1000s on a nick on straightaway

00:36:30
though, I've got a GoPro. But as a kid, I did exactly the same.

00:36:34
My dad, he played around with photography and enjoyed it. And

00:36:38
he had an old DSLR. And I used to play around with it a little

00:36:42
bit. Never understood it. But every Christmas we'd get like a

00:36:46
disposable Polaroid or something like that in the Christmas

00:36:49
stocking. Or one of those? I don't know. How old are you? 39.

00:36:53
Okay, to remember the old disposable cameras that you

00:36:57
could mount like six bulb flashes on the top. And when

00:37:01
they got used they were gone. So he didn't have developed so

00:37:05
yeah, and he didn't give me when I got and 10 years. 10 years on

00:37:08
it. Yeah, camera. Yeah, gotta go. But yeah, I used to get

00:37:12
those as well. And we'd have the disappointment of taking the the

00:37:17
old rails or the old rolls of instead of camera to film,

00:37:22
sorry, to the local pharmacy and wait a week to see what you've

00:37:26
got. You know that a 36 You'd get to two photos that are okay,

00:37:30
that's about it. So it never really grabbed me in a great way

00:37:36
until I started going underwater. And I say I got a I

00:37:40
got a GoPro. In fact, it was the year I left the military and

00:37:48
went on a six month diving holiday on my own just headed

00:37:51
for Thailand. Right. And I took a GoPro with me it was the first

00:37:55
GoPro that I bought.

00:37:56
Nicholas Remy: Oh, that's when you went you became divemaster.

00:37:58
And you started teaching, right?

00:38:00
Matt Waters: Yeah, just Yeah, I was on holiday and then just

00:38:03
randomly got asked if I'd like to take over a dive master

00:38:07
position eventually. And instead of going back to the UK after

00:38:11
six months holiday, I thought, Okay, I'm gonna stay there's

00:38:14
beers, beaches, women in bikinis living the dream that I had to

00:38:19
I. But yeah, so I started with a GoPro, and then it was or maybe

00:38:28
in 2015 2016, something like that. I picked up a Canon g7 X

00:38:33
mark two. And that's when I started to kind of focus on what

00:38:40
I was trying to do with it. And eventually ended up with a

00:38:44
couple of strobes, which completely threw me off. First

00:38:47
god knows how long the road Yeah, and then about a year, 18

00:38:51
months, no 18 months ago now, I love the camera, Canon M six

00:38:55
mark two. And that just threw me straight back into learning how

00:39:01
to use a camera again, because you go from a compact to a, you

00:39:04
know, a mirrorless and everything changes.

00:39:08
Nicholas Remy: So, it's the next level of complexity, right? It is

00:39:11
Matt Waters: yeah. And you kind of get up to the I got up to the

00:39:14
maximum that I could do with a compact and then thought, right?

00:39:17
I've got to take the leap. I'm gonna get a mirrorless because

00:39:21
it's it's lighter and smaller, easier to carry on overseas

00:39:23
trips, all that kind of stuff, blah, blah, blah. And stumped

00:39:26
for that one look good camera. But it put me right back into

00:39:29
the novice group again. Yeah,

00:39:31
Nicholas Remy: it's I remember when when I finally got my D

00:39:35
free Android, my first DSLR the thing we had before was like,

00:39:38
back at the time it was popular type of camera it was called the

00:39:41
bridge camera. So it's like a compact with with a very big

00:39:44
zoom lens, basically. And it was very easy to use. You know, you

00:39:48
would see what you're shooting basically the lecture on the

00:39:50
compact camera, like on a compact camera. And the day I

00:39:54
started using the DSLR was like gee, there's a steep learning

00:39:57
curve, but same thing with your mirrorless cameras those things

00:40:00
have so many options, you can do everything manually. But until

00:40:03
you figure out those options, and the SEC, they become like,

00:40:06
second nature that you you're familiar with them? Well, you're

00:40:09
going to miss shots, you're going to be having to practice a

00:40:11
lot before you get different potential basically. Yeah,

00:40:14
Matt Waters: yeah, I've kind of, I've got the, I think I'm about

00:40:18
70% of the way with a wide angle. And I'm still way below

00:40:24
50% of the way with a macro here. So you know, that's why

00:40:29
I'm going to go into a couple of dives this week and just focus

00:40:31
on the macro and play around with a straight positionings and

00:40:34
the camera settings and all that kind of stuff.

00:40:38
Nicholas Remy: Yeah, give them guidance would be a good place

00:40:39
for for practising those skills. Because if you did have to

00:40:43
position the strobes in a way that you get your subject not

00:40:46
too much of the world around it to clear photos and all that so

00:40:50
it's a good when you I guess when you dive in in a lovely

00:40:53
tropical place, you go to valley for example. You don't have to

00:40:57
position your strobe so perfectly, as long as you get

00:41:00
some light on the subject, you're good to go. Basically,

00:41:02
you go to Clifton gardens, while getting the light isn't just one

00:41:06
thing and then you want to minimise how much excavator

00:41:08
you've got and and that definitely is a good way to

00:41:11
sharpen your skills. Definitely then doing that in Clifton

00:41:15
gardens next time you go to bury your goodness, where tropical

00:41:17
Galapagos and places like that you're going to take fantastic

00:41:20
Matt Waters: shots. Yes, hopefully. Otherwise, it's a

00:41:22
very expensive wasted trip.

00:41:26
Nicholas Remy: If you want to double up on, you know, on the

00:41:29
on the landings, the underwater club is coming soon. Yeah.

00:41:34
Matt Waters: I'm always up for learning. I think. Even if

00:41:38
you're a master of something new, there's always something

00:41:39
else you're gonna learn

00:41:40
Nicholas Remy: that there is an end, there's two things I've

00:41:44
noticed not only in my way of learning, but with chatting with

00:41:47
friends that have diverse photographers as well is when

00:41:53
you don't practice some skills for a while. It just you know,

00:41:55
it just just goes away. I mean, doesn't go really away. But it

00:42:00
wears out a little bit sitter's. And I find myself even when I

00:42:03
was learning everything by books, if let's say I was doing

00:42:07
macro for a long time at home because there was only a macro

00:42:09
to shoot. And then there was going on a trip where I might

00:42:11
see Manta rays or big rugby wideangle I would go back to my

00:42:15
book and I would relearn basically or refresh whatever I

00:42:18
learned by you before basically nontheless trip. Yeah. And and

00:42:23
that's one of the things I like with with the underwater club is

00:42:26
that I think lots of people are doing, you know, infrequent

00:42:31
diving, or infrequent in the sense that they will go in a

00:42:35
tropical destination once in a year or twice in a year maybe.

00:42:38
And I think having the ocean you know, to go back to your

00:42:41
courses, go back to your learning, when you need it

00:42:43
happening is going to be pretty, pretty handy in those cases.

00:42:47
Matt Waters: So have you have you structured the delivery? How

00:42:52
many videos are there? How many different levels? What kind of

00:42:55
people? Is it targeting?

00:42:58
Nicholas Remy: I've got in total? About 40? Lessons?

00:43:02
Matt Waters: 40? Yes. fucky. Now you have been busy. I've been

00:43:05
busy.

00:43:06
Nicholas Remy: 40 Each of the lesson is split into smaller

00:43:09
videos as well. Okay, so how many think more than 100? In

00:43:13
total? Probably okay. But the reason for that is? Well, first

00:43:17
of all underwater photography is complex and on wide topic, as

00:43:20
you know. And the other thing is, I wanted to make sure that

00:43:23
the you know, the videos would be the knowledge would be well,

00:43:26
you'd be able to consume it in a bite sized format. So if you're

00:43:31
at home, you know, after days of work, you're on your couch, you

00:43:34
have time you want to spend one hour learning underwater

00:43:37
photography, pop your TV open, open the Android app on your

00:43:41
phone airplay, and you're watching the big screen, you're

00:43:43
relaxing, yeah, but if you're on the daily commute, and you just

00:43:46
have 10 minutes of your time, then most of the time, the

00:43:49
subsections of a lesson are less than 10 minutes long. So there's

00:43:53
always a time where you can spend a few minutes if you have

00:43:56
a few minutes to spare. That's time you can spend learning or

00:43:59
practising in the world of photography. So that's about,

00:44:04
you know, the volume of the content. And the I guess the way

00:44:07
I've structured it, the way that the way I've digested in pieces,

00:44:11
in terms of structure, asked myself a lot of questions about

00:44:15
what's the right way to present underwater photography. And I

00:44:18
think I think that there is not one way. I think we all there's

00:44:23
no there's various ways you can learn. Some people will start

00:44:26
with macro, some people will go wide angle, some people will not

00:44:30
choose a strobe or video light at all for years, because maybe

00:44:33
they should very close to the surface. Some people well,

00:44:38
there's various learning paths. And the way I've presented it

00:44:42
then is to say there's an app, the lessons are presented as a

00:44:47
map. So you're looking at a mind map basically, where you can see

00:44:51
themes. So a theme might be wideangle. A theme might be

00:44:55
lighting as a skill and the world lighting. Another one

00:44:58
might be the equipment the photography equipments. And

00:45:01
within those themes, you can see with the lessons positions on

00:45:05
the map how they relate to each other. So for example, before

00:45:09
you start learning about how to turn a fish ID shot into an

00:45:14
actual portrait with character, you might want to learn how to

00:45:17
position your strobes. And you might ask yourself, Hey, do I

00:45:21
want to use once robot to strobes? So the residents are

00:45:25
arranged and the mindmap in a way that tells you that you

00:45:28
probably want to have those skills before but you don't have

00:45:31
to, because perhaps you know, some of those things. Or you

00:45:34
just want straight to understand what are the artistic

00:45:37
considerations in making a portrait, as opposed to the

00:45:40
technicalities of hey, one stroke, two strokes how to

00:45:43
position the strobes. So I really wanted to organise it in

00:45:46
a way that no one feels they have to go in a special order.

00:45:50
Yeah, they see the map, the map is clickable. So you can click

00:45:53
and have a pop up telling you, hey, this is what it is about.

00:45:57
And then if you click you have more details about the contents

00:45:59
in exactly what you're going to learn. You have guidance on

00:46:02
whether you should know, this piece of information before

00:46:06
taking this lesson to make the most of it or not. And, again,

00:46:11
this is a freely I always say free flowing is free flowing.

00:46:15
Yeah.

00:46:16
Matt Waters: It sounds fantastic. Thank you, quite

00:46:18
frankly, I've not seen it yet. But it sounds fantastic. I'm a

00:46:21
very visual learner. Yeah. And that that kind of mapping, I

00:46:29
would say, excites me over the idea of having chapter sub

00:46:32
chapter in the least watch this, watch this, watch this

00:46:34
Nicholas Remy: 100% Here, I think for learners like you, I'm

00:46:38
the same. And I think most people benefit from having a

00:46:41
visual layout of how the concepts connect to each other,

00:46:44
the mind map really to say, okay, because when you start,

00:46:47
you're like, Hey, Mr. diver, I want to I want to learn

00:46:50
photography. You don't know what you don't know. Yeah. You know,

00:46:53
how do you know that? How would you know that? You know, there

00:46:57
are specific skill sets and techniques and best practices in

00:47:01
working with a model. You see beautiful photos of wreck with a

00:47:04
model looking positioned in the right place with the leg

00:47:07
straight and all that. If you don't know any better, you're

00:47:09
like, well, that person must have just been taking photos of

00:47:13
diver passing by. Absolutely not. All those good shots.

00:47:16
They're all staged, most of them are staged. And you don't know

00:47:20
those things if you're a beginner. But if you're starting

00:47:22
off and you're like, okay, here is everything I can learn. Well,

00:47:27
I'm keen for whitening, go to whitening go sounds good. As a

00:47:29
start, you got to wait and get your light. Okay, close focus,

00:47:32
wide angle. All right, shallow water wide angle, you can see

00:47:35
the themes that you could get started. There was a reason for

00:47:39
camera settings for an angle. If you just want a bit of technical

00:47:41
guidance on the settings that would work well. And then you're

00:47:43
like working with Moodle? Ah, there is such a thing. You have

00:47:47
to work with the Moodle. Interesting. What is it about

00:47:49
you go there, and then you realise that there's a hand

00:47:51
signals. There is best practice in how the Moodle position

00:47:55
themselves where they were, where they look, and all the

00:47:58
things?

00:47:58
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. I mean, ours do you think you've put

00:48:01
into this in a year and a half.

00:48:06
Nicholas Remy: The thing is, I don't think I know too much.

00:48:09
Basically, I think I'm at 30 minutes of, of work for one

00:48:15
minute of video. And I've got 16 hours of video in total. And

00:48:20
that's just the beginning. Because people joining you and

00:48:23
the workload as becoming members. We'll also have access

00:48:26
to monthly webinars where we get together we talk about

00:48:30
particular topic, we dive into some techniques, we exchange, we

00:48:32
do things like that, so that there's going to be more, more,

00:48:37
let's say more video contents. And I really want to make it

00:48:41
something that lives for example, because the day that

00:48:47
especially technical aspects, but not only that are going to

00:48:50
become things are going to change. So for example, there is

00:48:55
a course where it's all about photography equipments. So I

00:49:00
cover basically every single bit of kit that you might find in an

00:49:03
hour, the other photographers bag, because again, you don't

00:49:06
know what you don't know, why would someone need to focus

00:49:08
light? Why do they have arms? What do they need floats for and

00:49:12
all those things. So I cover all those bits. In each and every

00:49:15
lesson, I explain what are the specs that you find in one of

00:49:18
the things like a stroke, for example, what are the important

00:49:22
ones, so that you know, as a, as a consumer as a photographer,

00:49:26
you're equipped to decide what's important when you're going to

00:49:30
buy your stroke. And what was it what are we seeing again?

00:49:36
Talking about equipment.

00:49:39
Matt Waters: Yeah. We're talking about the the add ons, so you're

00:49:45
gonna have the monthly webinars and stuff like that.

00:49:47
Nicholas Remy: Yeah, correct. And in one of those lessons, I'm

00:49:50
talking about cameras. So I'm going through the various types

00:49:53
of cameras that you might use for underwater photography, your

00:49:55
GoPro your compact with DSLR mirrorless and I'm coming

00:50:00
Preparing them side by sides for the various, you know, let's say

00:50:05
create area, autofocus, image quality, things like that. And

00:50:09
I'm seeing for example, as of today for underwater photography

00:50:13
DSLRs have an advantage over mirrorless for such and such

00:50:16
things. But I know very well that next year, I might record

00:50:20
the video again to say something different because the technology

00:50:22
is catching up. Yeah. So this is a big body of knowledge, but I'm

00:50:27
going to make it to evolve it as well over time. Yeah.

00:50:30
Matt Waters: And when people go, they've got to give allowance

00:50:32
for the advance of technology, because no one can keep up with

00:50:35
it. It's so fucking fast. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Very

00:50:42
interesting. So you mentioned that the underwater club is

00:50:47
going to be a membership. So is it subscription based?

00:50:51
Nicholas Remy: Yes, it's going to be a subscription base.

00:50:53
Because I thought about different models, different ways

00:50:56
of doing it. But I really think that as you want the knowledge

00:51:02
to stick, as the sort of photos that you're going to take, over

00:51:07
time, are going to change when you travel, you need to be able

00:51:11
to go back to the knowledge and the learnings. And so that's

00:51:15
the, that's the weight. People, they basically get access to the

00:51:18
content, they become members, this gives gives them access to

00:51:22
the courses. And this they become part of a community as

00:51:25
well. So they get access to the monthly webby now. And there is

00:51:29
also something very close to my heart as part of the underwater

00:51:32
club that that will be for members. There is a dedicated

00:51:36
members forum, where we exchange about photography, but I want to

00:51:42
do it in a very specific way. I want this to be a place where

00:51:45
we're going to give each other constructive feedback on our

00:51:48
photography, because I think that is a massive, massive,

00:51:52
massive way to progress. Yes. And so that that would be

00:51:56
something very important. At the beginning, I would probably

00:51:59
myself be doing most of the feedbacks. So today, I do it in

00:52:04
a one to one basis, someone can hire me for a one hour two hour

00:52:08
coaching session, we talked about underwater photography.

00:52:11
But I think there's a lot of learning that can be had from

00:52:16
reading a constructive critique of someone else photos by first

00:52:20
person. So there will be that components. But I also want over

00:52:25
time to take on board over members of the club with me to

00:52:30
be concrete to formulate critique themselves. Yeah.

00:52:33
Because I think even if you're, you know, very beginner in

00:52:37
underwater photography, of course, the critique, if it's

00:52:39
given from a place of care with respect, it's perfect. It's very

00:52:43
useful. But you're a very experienced photographer

00:52:45
yourself. spending the time to formulate a constructive

00:52:49
critique onto someone else photos is also a great way to

00:52:52
keep on learning. Yes. And I think that's, that's going to be

00:52:57
a very beneficial, like a virtuous circle that would be

00:53:01
taking place between members.

00:53:02
Matt Waters: I think that benefit is circular as well,

00:53:04
because a lot of people are too over critical of their own

00:53:09
shots. Yes. So being able to critique other people's work,

00:53:15
and then hear honest and open opinions of their work rather

00:53:19
than Oh, that's good, man. Yes, you know, and just make you

00:53:24
rethink and reevaluate, actually, I'm a little bit

00:53:29
better than what I thought I was, you know,

00:53:32
Nicholas Remy: yeah, it's too is too easy. When you when you get

00:53:35
a hang on to the technicalities, to see the defects to say out,

00:53:40
then the composition is not right. You're not exactly on the

00:53:44
third, or it's a little bit overexposed there. Or here,

00:53:47
there's a fish to take these cats. But look at competition

00:53:50
winning shots, in many competitions among the top

00:53:53
winners, you see the effects on the photos. Yeah. So in that,

00:53:56
that's, that's the, that's the artistic sensitivity that we all

00:54:00
have, that we can exchange when we critique each other. But when

00:54:03
you're on your own watching your photos, you don't get those

00:54:05
things.

00:54:06
Matt Waters: So he tried to tell me that those awards that you've

00:54:09
won, you've got defects on your photos.

00:54:11
Nicholas Remy: I do sometimes.

00:54:12
Matt Waters: I do. Sometimes I can say

00:54:15
Nicholas Remy: I do sometimes. But I'm a bit like you I'm over

00:54:20
critical of myself. Yeah. And there are photos where, where

00:54:24
you know, I'm like, now, Miss, there's a fish shark tail. I've

00:54:28
got a photo, for example, that did very well in a few contests.

00:54:32
It's like a big school of greatness shots in southwest

00:54:35
rocks. The lighting is great. The look of the shark, you know

00:54:40
the layout. Everything is good, but there is one shark in the

00:54:44
corner. Who has a tail cats with this 20 sharks in the photos.

00:54:48
Yeah, for that reason. When I took that photo, I was like,

00:54:52
man, you know, stop making the final case. Fortunately, I

00:54:55
didn't delete it. And then as I was building the underwater

00:54:58
club, and I spent nearly two yours going back into my photos

00:55:01
because I needed to find materials to illustrate what I

00:55:04
was teaching, basically. And I went back to our photos and I'm

00:55:07
like, Hey, wait a minute, it still looks quite okay, this

00:55:11
photo actually. And some friends I'm like, Okay, actually these

00:55:14
10 photos of sharks from Southwest rocks. They they look

00:55:17
good, actually. Maybe not competition material, but they

00:55:20
look really good. So I asked a few friends in a WhatsApp group.

00:55:23
Hey, what do you think if there was one photo that stands out?

00:55:27
What do you think this is? A few people pointed this one. And

00:55:30
then a few others pointed over photos. And the last one I was

00:55:33
like, Yeah, well, I'll try the other ones in competitions this

00:55:37
year. And next year, I'll try this one that I'm still not

00:55:40
convinced about the shark. We've got Tellarites Elia. Well, I

00:55:45
entered it in ocean for the rest of the year. And I won first

00:55:49
place in the conservation hope category. And I think that

00:55:52
contest is I think it's the biggest contest in terms of

00:55:55
ocean imagery in the world. I think. So there was like, man,

00:55:58
okay, I can still see the defect on the photo myself. But having

00:56:03
listen to other people telling me no, it's really good. The

00:56:05
emotion, the emotion is excuses to defect basically.

00:56:09
Matt Waters: Well, that just that just bolsters what I just

00:56:12
said about people being over critical of their own work. And

00:56:17
by the way, well done,

00:56:18
Nicholas Remy: thank you. But there's two sides to I think

00:56:21
there's two sides to the story about the emotion you put to

00:56:24
your work, right? Being over critical, definitely looking at

00:56:27
the defects because you want ideally, a shot with no defects

00:56:30
to go to a competition and being fixated on that you forget the

00:56:33
positive vibe of the emotion that you have in the shot. But

00:56:36
then the other way around, is sometimes you get too

00:56:39
emotionally attached to a shot because you struggled so hard to

00:56:42
create that shot. You know, like that's the shot. That is the

00:56:45
best. That's the one I'm going to enter in competitions. That's

00:56:49
the one I'm going to pitch to magazines. That's That's the

00:56:51
shot. And sometimes you also need that critical aid from

00:56:54
someone else to say, yeah, it's sharp. It's called a fool. It's

00:56:58
a great animal. But yeah, it's like, a good ad shot. Really?

00:57:04
That's it doesn't stand out. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about the

00:57:07
wow factor. Yep. There is a photo for example, we, which and

00:57:11
again, I can honestly tell all my love and my admiration for

00:57:15
that photo, because it's not mine. It's a photo by Linda. We

00:57:18
were having a fantastic dive for once in the Mediterranean Sea.

00:57:22
In a place where the local fishermen, the local

00:57:25
professional fisherman decided with each other. You know what,

00:57:27
let's make it a Marine Park. Let's stop fishing in that place

00:57:32
for 10 years and see what happens. And long story short,

00:57:36
it was fantastic. And they decided to do it again for 10

00:57:38
years. So we went to the dive sites. And in the med you can

00:57:42
see sometimes the Mediterranean Cooper, it's called the brown

00:57:45
grouper, dusky grouper, very iconic fish from the mid

00:57:49
atlantic because it's been over fished. It's like a puppy coming

00:57:52
to see you in the water. So at the time, when people didn't

00:57:54
know better, they were just bear fishing into extinction. So now

00:57:58
you see more of them because they're they've been productive

00:58:00
for a few years. But long story short, if I can make long story

00:58:04
short, I'm not sure about that.

00:58:05
Matt Waters: That's alright, we go all the time. And

00:58:09
Nicholas Remy: we go to the to the safe sites. And at some

00:58:12
point, I mean, that was memorable. At some points. We

00:58:16
see two military and groupers. Two big ones, they were males,

00:58:19
because they become males at the end of their the life as they

00:58:22
grow. And they were doing something and never saw usually

00:58:25
when because they must still be a fair bit of poaching

00:58:30
happening. Even though they're protected, they tend to stay

00:58:33
away from you. Okay, we will reverse not so much. But with

00:58:36
regular divers, they do take the distances. In that place, though

00:58:40
they couldn't care less about the divers, they were hammering

00:58:42
each other for basically the two groupers they were fighting from

00:58:46
a distance when you get the photo you you could think that

00:58:48
they're kissing but they're certainly not the fighting head

00:58:51
on head. And you could hear the noise in the water bang. And you

00:58:55
could see you could see the fish scales really pop crazy action.

00:58:59
And Lina was holding the camera that day she was taking photos I

00:59:03
was just you know over enjoying myself pointing creatures of

00:59:06
being a model. And when I saw the action, you never know how

00:59:09
long it's going to last for so you have to you have to get the

00:59:12
shots. And I saw the action I saw I was I'm like there is no

00:59:16
way I'm going to be able to swim out before she takes the shots.

00:59:19
She will have heard from my body in the shot. So I said okay,

00:59:22
well what's the other option is that I go in there and I

00:59:24
positioned myself perfectly. I make sure I look in the right

00:59:27
place. I do all these things right. And that's what I did. So

00:59:31
you've got a further word to groupers their head on head

00:59:34
symmetry call centre of the frame and I'm coming in the

00:59:39
middle, slightly sideways and they look right in the middle of

00:59:43
the fight perfect position all that it's a perfect shot in my

00:59:47
view and very attached to it then I'm in Alexei turret as

00:59:50
well. But never win some competition. It never it never

00:59:54
succeed, successes successes and and I'm not sure why some people

00:59:58
tell me are so great. Natural History moments that she's

01:00:02
photographed. But there's you diver here, you're spoiling the

01:00:05
thing. And I'm like, well, there's lots of photos where

01:00:08
with animals and the diver but I don't know something there

01:00:11
doesn't work. Yeah, but we have so much emotional attachment.

01:00:14
And every now and then we still enter it in a competition to

01:00:17
see, you know that with that emotional attachment tree, you

01:00:21
can hang it on the wall. Yes, that we can certainly do

01:00:25
Matt Waters: that, in fact that one thing I need to do. And I've

01:00:27
never done it. Photos I've got I've never actually, in fact, it

01:00:32
was one of my friends here in Sydney, who he was the first

01:00:36
dude to get one printed up. Yeah, okay. Yeah, in his

01:00:41
apartment as first time. It's one of my photos in real life

01:00:44
instead of digital.

01:00:45
Nicholas Remy: How did you feel when you say it's brilliant?

01:00:47
Matt Waters: It's great. Yeah, it's awesome. So I thought I

01:00:50
think we need to do it.

01:00:51
Nicholas Remy: Yeah, I think it's, it's a thing you know, you

01:00:54
have to do, but but do it because you will feel great. And

01:00:57
I think there's lots of, there's lots of photos that look even

01:01:02
better in print, then even better in print than they look

01:01:05
in real life. I have two screens at home. And when I'm pixel

01:01:11
editing a photo, there is one screen when a photo might start

01:01:15
to look a little bit. I don't know, noisy, doesn't look very

01:01:19
good. In terms of details. On the other screen, it looks

01:01:21
better. Yeah, different resolution. But then most of the

01:01:25
time, if I print, there will be some small defects on small

01:01:28
noise that are just smooth in the way by the printing process.

01:01:31
Yeah. And when you're free print, you've made a good print

01:01:34
big prints. Not going to stare at the photo from five

01:01:37
centimetres, right? You'd be standing back, stand back and

01:01:40
look at it. And then you're going to enjoy what you see.

01:01:43
Yeah, yeah. Gee, I'm the worst. Interviewee I don't bring any

01:01:47
beer. I don't bring any photo shaver.

01:01:48
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah, your shit.

01:01:52
Nicholas Remy: But again, thank you for a beer afterwards, if

01:01:54
you have time. Yeah.

01:01:56
Matt Waters: In the meantime, I'll just drink the one beer

01:01:58
that's left to do lovely stuff.

01:02:02
Nicholas Remy: Got all the thinking to do, I'm just

01:02:03
chatting and repairing and all that, oh,

01:02:05
Matt Waters: don't worry about that. I can, it's that's the

01:02:08
beauty of of doing a knot and not doing it live, we can just

01:02:13
cut it out. So when people get nervous, and there's pregnant

01:02:17
pauses, or they do this, and they move away from the

01:02:18
microphone, we can just redo total easing slowly. So how do

01:02:23
Nicholas Remy: you know if there's a sound issue with the

01:02:26
easy? Is it telling us rubber? Just editing afterwards?

01:02:31
Matt Waters: Yeah, um, what the routine that we do is, I mean,

01:02:35
obviously, we've got the headphones on here. So I'm

01:02:37
listening to what's going on with your microphone, and

01:02:40
background noises like this little fan and all that kind of

01:02:42
stuff. And I just make a mental note. And then once we've

01:02:48
finished today, Rod, will send me the raw tracks from tomorrow.

01:02:56
And I'll listen through to them again, while I'm working at home

01:02:58
on a PC and pick up those little bits and pieces that I want

01:03:02
removed. So I just note the time, and then send the data

01:03:06
back to Rod. He takes out he does all the editing, and then

01:03:10
balances all the noises and otters, all that magical stuff

01:03:13
that needs to do and sends me back adds on the intro and outro

01:03:16
and sends me back the the final edit stuff. Yeah, it's, it's

01:03:22
quite well,

01:03:23
Nicholas Remy: I wish I had someone helping me with the

01:03:25
audio for all the, you know, for the lessons of recorded and then

01:03:28
sometimes I can't remember how many times you know, um, so I'm

01:03:32
doing that from from a study in my in our house. Yeah. In the

01:03:36
south of Sydney. And the number of odd noises that you've got at

01:03:40
home that you don't pick. Unless you're doing your recording

01:03:43
sound. I told him at some point, did you hear the parents? Like

01:03:48
no, did you hear the planes? They owe the planes? No. Did you

01:03:51
hear the people working there? No. Did you hear the neighbour

01:03:53
and you don't pay attention to those random noises unless

01:03:56
you're like, I need silence here.

01:03:59
Matt Waters: Have you? Have you? Have you created a box around

01:04:01
your microphones so that you can kind of eliminate those? No,

01:04:04
Nicholas Remy: because I'm, you know, I'm wearing the hoodie.

01:04:06
Oh, you're on the rodeo. Yeah, I need to change my setup because

01:04:10
I did this way because there will be times where I'm finding

01:04:13
myself holding a housing and moving some straws and all that

01:04:16
and that wouldn't be practical to have something in front of

01:04:19
me. But in reality, the housing thing is like one every 10

01:04:23
lessons most of the time and talking. I'm displaying photos

01:04:26
next to me I'm displaying talking points, but

01:04:30
Matt Waters: you know what you could do? Have a chat with

01:04:32
Roger. Yeah. Because at the times when you need to do

01:04:35
something that you want to record you on messing about with

01:04:39
gear. You could come in here and use one of these microphones

01:04:42
here right there was plenty of space. Yeah, as we can see. I

01:04:46
just record it. And you've got no noise on the outside.

01:04:50
Nicholas Remy: Because he's got no the soundproofing.

01:04:53
Matt Waters: Yeah, that's it, right like these, these boards

01:04:56
that he's got, you know, they there's also the foam pad big

01:05:00
ones like wavy foam. When I do recordings at home, I tend to

01:05:05
I've got a, like a, almost like a milk crate, which I've put the

01:05:10
foam on the inside and that that sits with a microphone coming

01:05:14
through from the back. So the the microphone itself is

01:05:17
completely enhanced by foam around this section where I'm

01:05:21
tried right i right. So even with the window next to me if

01:05:25
someone's outside and they walking past or a dog yapping at

01:05:28
the microphone doesn't pick it up.

01:05:29
Nicholas Remy: Great. Okay.

01:05:32
Matt Waters: All little little tricks

01:05:33
Nicholas Remy: or tricks? You know, I've learned, I've learned

01:05:37
for me myself, I've done a few things I've learned Elementor

01:05:39
and all those things. I might as well learn how to do proper

01:05:42
sound recording.

01:05:42
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. Um, so I'm scratching my ass with the

01:05:46
Elementor. At the moment.

01:05:47
Nicholas Remy: It should be more intuitive, right? Sometimes

01:05:50
you're like list of bullet points, and the bullets doesn't

01:05:53
align with the point. And you're like, that's what you do for a

01:05:56
living man. Yeah. Why can't you do each

01:05:59
Matt Waters: one pack of faffing about with the flex boxes and

01:06:03
loot carousels? They're a great idea. Yeah. And so, templates.

01:06:07
But, you know, if you make a template, it's a template, it's

01:06:10
never going to change. You know, you can't, you can't use the

01:06:14
same template on a different page and edit it because it's

01:06:17
going to read it the other page as well. So I find it a bit

01:06:20
frustrating, a bit limited, but it's certainly better than what

01:06:23
it used to be.

01:06:24
Nicholas Remy: And yeah, I mean, generally you do what you can

01:06:26
you can be as beautiful pages this way. And again, I'm lucky

01:06:29
about Weebly now, because she's a bit nerdy yourself. And

01:06:33
there's a few situations where I'm like, he doesn't look good

01:06:36
at all. She's like, let me let me look at it. And since a kid,

01:06:40
she's been, you know, doing projects, like like a NAT, like

01:06:43
a display, like stuff like that. So she's very visual in that

01:06:45
sense. Yeah. Very artistic. And also, she's a bit nerdy. So

01:06:49
sometimes she does custom CSS for me. The giveaway thingy,

01:06:55
there's a carousel, which shows the prizes, like good strobes

01:06:59
and things and masks, stuff like that. And the carousel is a is a

01:07:05
WordPress widget, right? It's a plugin. Yeah. And those guys

01:07:09
don't know what they're thinking. But they serve the

01:07:11
carousel, and the images are shrink. So basically, you can

01:07:14
see the prices and you think that's okay. They're like, Oh,

01:07:17
yeah, willing to upgrade our software. Yeah, you should. But

01:07:19
I'm stuck. And then I looked at the initial survey, I might be

01:07:22
able to do some CSS, and then she did she pushed the whole

01:07:26
thing and it looks okay,

01:07:27
Matt Waters: brilliant. Okay, so when I get stuck, I'm going to

01:07:30
message you and ask for the boss lady. Lovely stuff. I hate what

01:07:40
we've gone. Oh, the giveaways. Yeah, let's let's talk about the

01:07:45
giveaways.

01:07:46
Nicholas Remy: So, yeah, like we said before, I'm super excited,

01:07:51
because the underwater club is about to go live in a few weeks

01:07:53
time. So by the end of March, people will be able to go on the

01:07:56
underwater club.com. And they will be able to see the courses,

01:08:01
see what's offered there and hopefully start their free trial

01:08:04
to see what it's like and become a member. But sorry,

01:08:07
Matt Waters: just jumping in have you start? Have you

01:08:09
selected a particular date that it's gonna go live?

01:08:13
Nicholas Remy: I think it's going to be most likely the 31st

01:08:16
of March, okay. It's probably the 31st of March, okay. But if

01:08:23
you go to the underwater club.com before, there's a

01:08:26
little surprise there. I'm running a giveaway to celebrate

01:08:30
the launch. And it's very simple to enter. It's a free giveaway.

01:08:34
You don't have to purchase anything. The only thing is you

01:08:36
have to enter your email address. join my mailing list,

01:08:39
basically. And this way, you will get notified when the

01:08:42
underwater flood goes live when there's events around the

01:08:44
underwater climate fix like that. And there's quite a few

01:08:48
nice prices for underwater photographers, at least

01:08:51
underwater. These are things that will appeal to underwater

01:08:54
photographers.

01:08:55
Matt Waters: Are we allowed to say what the price is 100% yet

01:08:58
go for it. Yeah.

01:08:59
Nicholas Remy: So the top price of the giveaway is a wonderful

01:09:02
premium top range rich wrap Flash Pro X stronger. So retro

01:09:09
is a European based company. They manufacture top quality

01:09:14
underwater strobes. So underwater flashes. And I myself

01:09:18
have been using almost exclusively a pair of their

01:09:21
flashes to address Flash Pro for the last two years. Most of the

01:09:28
world's I'm winning with underwater photos have been

01:09:30
used. I've been using these two strobes basically. And then

01:09:36
nearly jealous of whoever is going to win the price. Because

01:09:39
the strobe that retro is sponsoring for this giveaway is

01:09:43
actually even better. It's the X version. So it's basically the

01:09:46
strobe I use myself, but with an upgrade in terms of traffic, it

01:09:50
recycles. 20% quicker. There's a few nice things like that. But

01:09:54
the quality of light is fantastic. It's powerful.

01:09:57
There's a range of accessories you can fit into To destroy when

01:10:00
you want to go and get on gardens to be the new team, you

01:10:04
can focus the light, you can do lots of things around the around

01:10:06
the lights. So it's a fantastic store.

01:10:08
Matt Waters: What did the retailer

01:10:10
Nicholas Remy: didn't think it's like, nearly two grants nearly

01:10:13
$2, one

01:10:14
Matt Waters: stroller leash. So this is a giveaway.

01:10:18
Nicholas Remy: It's a giveaway. It's for free, sign me up pretty

01:10:21
big price.

01:10:21
Matt Waters: So I can I put in my 15 email addresses.

01:10:24
Nicholas Remy: You supposed to put one. But what you can do

01:10:26
though, what you can do is you put your email, and that gives

01:10:30
you a one entry. When free entry to the giveaway. I'm asking a

01:10:34
little questions to whomever wants to answer about what sort

01:10:37
of camera they're using for underwater photography. If you

01:10:39
answer that question, you get a second entry. And then if you

01:10:43
share the giveaway, by email, or by Facebook, you'll have your

01:10:46
own private link with friends and you get some friends to sign

01:10:49
up through your link. For each friend you recruit you get an

01:10:52
extra entry. That's awesome. So if you share a few people, then

01:10:55
you know you're a bit active with that you can raise your

01:10:57
chances dramatically

01:10:58
Matt Waters: on a the LinkedIn, because I've got quite a few

01:11:01
people. Yeah,

01:11:02
Nicholas Remy: I'm sure. So the underwater club.com. Yeah. And

01:11:06
yeah, that's pretty much it. Okay, so that's the first price.

01:11:08
But then the second price is. So basically with the prices, what

01:11:12
I did is I went to potential sponsors. And I decided to

01:11:17
approach sponsors that manufacture the gear that I use

01:11:20
myself, because I wanted people to win things that I'm items

01:11:24
that I'm sure are excellent for an underwater photographer. So

01:11:29
the second prize is a pair of things. So these are the

01:11:32
marriage 70 quadruplets? Oh yes, you know them, right.

01:11:36
Matt Waters: That's my second set. Yep.

01:11:38
Nicholas Remy: I think someone told me that these things. They

01:11:41
are like, probably the most popular things. I don't know if

01:11:44
it's on the planet. I don't want to make big statements like

01:11:46
that. But basically, if you go to a popular dive destination,

01:11:49
you'll see divemasters diving a lot doing 500 days a year.

01:11:53
That's the sort of things they're using, because they're

01:11:55
sort of rebel, right? Yeah. I love them personally, because as

01:11:59
a photographer, I need to do flutter kick sometimes if I

01:12:01
really want to dash through appearance, but if I go diving

01:12:05
in Clifton garden, sort of very mucky places like that. I do

01:12:08
frottage, so that I glide over the water and I don't stare up

01:12:12
at the bottom and you know, waste visibility and all that.

01:12:14
Yeah, and those things are excellent for both for both that

01:12:17
sort of thing. So so I think they're really good. So that's

01:12:20
the second price, then we've got a 200 euros voucher to use on a

01:12:25
retro online shop. So if you don't get destroyed, but you

01:12:29
still want to buy one or you want some accessories for your

01:12:31
strobe, you can use that as well. And then we've got a mask

01:12:35
Ameris mask, the ultra liquid skin vision masks are just super

01:12:40
comfortable. And I Oh, that's the one I use now. And that's

01:12:43
the first mask can use without any leak. Even if I forget to

01:12:47
shave the previous mask if it wasn't perfectly shaved, it was

01:12:51
a mess. And as I'm doing very, very long day for like three

01:12:54
hours, four hours. I can't have a leaking mask. That's so

01:12:57
uncomfortable. And this one doesn't leak. And he's very wide

01:13:00
vision as well. So good for you know, seeing you're finding your

01:13:03
subject, finding your whatever accessories, you've clicked on

01:13:06
your BCD and stuff like that. Yeah. And the last price is a

01:13:09
beautiful the underwater Club T shirt. The same I'm wearing

01:13:12
today. Yes.

01:13:14
Matt Waters: Very good, sir. Very good. Yeah, so everyone

01:13:18
who's listening in feet underwater club.com. We'll

01:13:21
repeat that we'll put in the show notes as well. Thanks. And

01:13:24
yeah, smash that out of the park 31st of March. So you're

01:13:28
hopefully going to be very busy from April onwards?

01:13:31
Nicholas Remy: Yes, yes, I think so. I'll be actually travelling

01:13:37
at the same time, because it's going to be it's going to be a

01:13:41
busy a busy month for me, at the end of the month, I'm going to

01:13:44
8x in Singapore, which is the time that we're launching the

01:13:48
underwater club as well. Okay. So but fortunately, as you know,

01:13:51
that there's there's, there's not only me working on this

01:13:54
Selena is going to is going to help me with administrating the

01:13:58
sites. If, if I'm basically something at edX and yeah, then

01:14:02
the month of April will be, will be very interesting. I can't, I

01:14:05
can't wait to have people you know, go there, experience it.

01:14:10
There's a trial that you can enter for free, you can start

01:14:13
for free when the club is live, so you can access everything for

01:14:16
seven days, without having to pay and this way you can test

01:14:20
that my style of teaching the format of the video, the pace,

01:14:25
everything feels right, you know, and then if you're

01:14:28
comfortable, then you stay and then you become a member. So I

01:14:32
was excited enough and you know, very keen to see people, you

01:14:35
know, going through the giveaway, starting to enter put

01:14:38
their email, ask me questions, sometimes watch the little

01:14:42
videos that I've put there to present the prices. I can't wait

01:14:46
to see people, you know, taking the courses interacting with

01:14:50
them, telling me what they think. I'm also asking at the

01:14:54
end of every lesson for feedback. So I want to keep this

01:14:57
improving over time. So if someone You know, sees that

01:15:01
maybe I could have delved into more details in one topic. I'm

01:15:05
quite a detail person. But if that's the case, that can always

01:15:08
be the case, I would love to get those feedbacks. If they weren't

01:15:12
fully sure about something, an explanation they gave, maybe it

01:15:15
wasn't so clear. Again, give me feedback. I want to improve it.

01:15:19
In any ways people can interact with me as well through the

01:15:21
underwater club will be there to help.

01:15:23
Matt Waters: So awesome. And are you are you having a standard

01:15:26
edX? You're here? Are you having a booth?

01:15:30
Nicholas Remy: No, I wouldn't be just there. I would be reporting

01:15:32
for the photo guide.

01:15:34
Matt Waters: Oh, really? Hmm. So you're going to be doing a bit

01:15:36
of microphone a bit or just

01:15:38
Nicholas Remy: I think you're going to visit a few standards

01:15:40
related to underwater photography, and check what are

01:15:43
the news there? And we'll write an article on the way back.

01:15:46
Okay. Yeah. And perhaps a few other things. But that's still

01:15:50
being considered. Yeah,

01:15:53
Matt Waters: I did get asked if I was going this year, and I

01:15:56
just can't worry on the price. I've got too much to do. But it

01:15:59
would have been would have been great to get in there and just

01:16:01
have a wander around like that. AWS tech. It's great to be in a

01:16:06
dive show. Right. And Singapore is probably one of the best ones

01:16:09
as well,

01:16:09
Nicholas Remy: I think so. I think so that would be my first

01:16:11
time going. But anyways, you're going those places, too. You

01:16:14
meet passionate people. You'll you network a little bit, you'll

01:16:19
find out about the latest tech. The latest. I'm going to love

01:16:24
it, I'm sure.

01:16:25
Matt Waters: Yeah. Have you got any Putney photos into a

01:16:28
competition? For IDEXX?

01:16:30
Nicholas Remy: I haven't yet but I mean to the WeChat

01:16:33
Matt Waters: effect so that they'll have a good display

01:16:35
wall? Yeah, I think so.

01:16:36
Nicholas Remy: And they've got some good prices as well. So

01:16:38
yeah, definitely want to try my luck.

01:16:40
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. But you don't have to enter like

01:16:43
political competitions like Visa or anything like that anymore.

01:16:46
You can leave that as normal people.

01:16:54
I the rebreather that you're using, which one is it?

01:16:58
Nicholas Remy: Are you still okay? So for many years, I've

01:17:02
been diving exclusively with the river river. So Revo is a fully

01:17:08
technical repeater. That's the sort of thing you can if you put

01:17:11
some trail mix in there, you can go to 200 metres with it. Oh,

01:17:15
that's not my thing. I'm not a very deep diver. I really use

01:17:18
them for photography, and long dives. But for many years have

01:17:21
been diving exclusively the Revo. And then in 2016, Revo has

01:17:25
been acquired by Maurice. And I, being very passionate, we were

01:17:30
very something probably just after photography is the next

01:17:33
thing I'm passionate about. And I was thinking, hey, what's

01:17:37
going to happen with Revo, which was kind of small company at the

01:17:40
time. You know, it was like a side project by a Belgian

01:17:44
entrepreneur, this guy was getting a bit older, wanting to

01:17:47
retire, what was going to happen to river divers. And then

01:17:51
fantastic news in the industry, Marisa quires, Rivo Marisa quiet

01:17:55
river because they wanted to create a more recreational

01:17:58
river, but they needed to sort of get the expertise to do that.

01:18:03
And as a result, they came up with the horizon, which is a

01:18:06
more recreational, semi closed river. But the thing I love

01:18:12
about it is that there's lots of the design, the good design

01:18:15
ideas from areevo that have been incorporated into the horizon.

01:18:19
And now, David, you're raising as well.

01:18:20
Matt Waters: Okay. And the horizon is a semi closed

01:18:26
rebreather. Did you say? Yep. Okay. Do you want to explain

01:18:29
that to folks that probably don't know too much about CCR?

01:18:33
Nicholas Remy: Yeah, absolutely. So. So there's two types of rib

01:18:37
river essentially, fully closed rib River, like the Revo like

01:18:41
the inspiration like the case and those guys fully closed rib,

01:18:46
reverse, what they do is, it's all it all comes from the fact

01:18:49
that when you breathe, you inhale, let's say air, and in

01:18:54
air, you will have 21 person oxygen, and the oxygen is what

01:18:57
your body needs. That's what it metabolises. When you exhale,

01:19:02
there's still lots of oxygen left in the gas that you're

01:19:05
going to blow in the bubbles. Let's say if you had 21 person,

01:19:08
that would be maybe 1716 persons left. And the concept behind the

01:19:12
river river is to say, hey, let's not waste to 16 person and

01:19:15
we can probably find a way to reuse them. So a closed circuit

01:19:20
River, like the fully technical ones, what they do is they take

01:19:24
back the guests that you've exceeded instead of leaving the

01:19:27
bottle, go in the water, they find that, hey, you've used some

01:19:32
of the oxygen, but then you have a pure oxygen tank on your

01:19:36
river, that's going to replenish just what you what you've

01:19:39
consumed a minute ago. At the same time, it's going to use

01:19:43
some co2 filters to remove the co2 co2 which is toxic, which is

01:19:48
part of what you're exhaling. So in summary, it cleans up the gas

01:19:52
removes the toxic co2, and it pumps up whatever missing

01:19:57
whatever oxygen that you have consumed would be missing

01:19:59
otherwise Okay, so that's a closed circuit rebreather, the

01:20:03
way it works means that there's no bubbles at all coming out of

01:20:06
the river. And because your body really doesn't use much oxygen,

01:20:11
much less than we probably think that we in general public

01:20:13
probably think you can, you don't use much gas. So on my

01:20:18
closed circuit River, out, I've got two tanks on the unit, I've

01:20:22
got a pure oxygen three litre tank and a regular air three

01:20:26
litre tank, the air tank is essentially just for my my wind,

01:20:31
my BCD, my drysuits. And for adjustments of what I breathe,

01:20:36
as I change that, that's it's the pure oxygen is what really I

01:20:40
breathe for being able to survive in the water. And we've

01:20:44
treated the tank, I'm able to spend six or seven hours in the

01:20:47
water. If I'm really relaxed, in one hour of diving, whatever the

01:20:53
depth, and we're going to consume about 20 bars of oxygen

01:20:57
on the three litre tank. So that's the best efficiency you

01:21:01
can get off any sort of diving apparatus and the water put up.

01:21:06
Now it's a bit technical to use, because you need to get the gas

01:21:10
exchangers the number the number of oxygen molecules perfectly

01:21:13
right. As we know, if you've got too much oxygen and you run into

01:21:16
other problems too little you get into hypoxia other problems

01:21:20
again. So it makes closed circuit rivers, the technical

01:21:24
ones a bit complicated to use. And some people consider them

01:21:29
dangerous. For that reason, they do require more training and

01:21:32
more vigilance, now comes the semi closed rivers, they work in

01:21:37
a very, very different when sort of different principle, you

01:21:41
still use some co2 cartridge filters. To clean the co2 out of

01:21:46
your exaile gas, you still need that you don't want to start

01:21:49
getting your headaches by breathing your co2 again again.

01:21:52
So that's the same. However, you don't have to tanks, you don't

01:21:57
need pure oxygen tank. Those pure oxygen tanks which are

01:22:00
tricky to source depending on where you dive and all that. You

01:22:03
just need a nitrox tank, one nitrous tank, you preempt the

01:22:06
network's tank onto your rebreather, with what the semi

01:22:10
close reprieve does is it will always flow some of that nitrox

01:22:16
into your breathing loop your breathing backs. Okay, so let's

01:22:20
say you have nitrox Vegito in the tank. As you breathe, you're

01:22:24
going to take it down to something else, let's say nitrox

01:22:28
27. And if you keep breathing, you're going to take it down

01:22:31
further, maybe nitrox, 2321, and so on. So to compensate for that

01:22:36
your rebreather is going to keep injecting bubbles of the netwrix

01:22:40
32 from the tank. So in a way of a semi closed River, your

01:22:46
breathing keeps pulling down the percentage of oxygen. But your

01:22:51
river keeps on pushing nitrox on the tank to push it up, push it

01:22:55
back up. So that sort of compensate each other. But

01:22:58
generally speaking, you've got let's say if you're breathing,

01:23:00
if your tank is 32, natural 32%, you might be breathing only

01:23:05
2726 28, something like that, as a result of this process where

01:23:11
the semi closed river always pushed some gas. It pushes more

01:23:15
than what you need. So at some point, that rebreather is full

01:23:19
of gas, it's actually always full of gas. So you've got a few

01:23:22
bubbles coming out from the back of the river. So that's the

01:23:26
difference with a closed circuit rebreather, you do have some

01:23:28
bubbles coming back. But there's very few and in that sense, you

01:23:31
still have the advantage of getting closer to wildlife. And

01:23:35
it's much safer because you don't depending on the

01:23:38
rebreather design, of course, yet the risk of going to hypoxia

01:23:42
hypercapnia or hyperoxia is nonexistence.

01:23:47
Matt Waters: And what's your bottom times like on the semi

01:23:49
close then in comparison to the full CCR?

01:23:52
Nicholas Remy: So that depends very depends more on depth, and

01:23:56
on and on the size of the tank. So my longest dive on the CCR

01:24:02
was four hours 30 minutes, and I still have plenty of gas and my

01:24:06
tanks. So it was more a case of I had it was dinnertime I had to

01:24:10
go to go out here. That was the reason. Lovely Dave Heather was

01:24:14
with the sea dragons in Adelaide by the way, nice, lovely place

01:24:18
lovely dive anyways, with the semi closed with the horizon and

01:24:24
diving now. It basically depends how much how close you want the,

01:24:32
the guests that you're breathing to be to what you have in the

01:24:35
tank. So if you have nitrox 32 in the tank, and you say hey, I

01:24:40
really want to breathe at least 28 It's going to use lots of

01:24:44
bubbles to keep you that up. If you say that's fine, I'm going

01:24:47
pretty shallow. I'm happy with nitrox. 25 then there's going to

01:24:51
be very few bubbles going there to give you that 25 So long

01:24:55
story short if I'm sure diving in Sydney, which is between five

01:25:00
to 20 metres depth most of the time out of a seven litre steel

01:25:05
tank. I can do three hours in your house on the river. Nice.

01:25:11
It's pretty good.

01:25:12
Matt Waters: Yeah. And retail wise. What's the difference in

01:25:17
price between the two units?

01:25:19
Nicholas Remy: It's run Yeah, roughly okay. So for the

01:25:23
marathon instant I know best. The Revo I think brand new might

01:25:28
cost you up to 15 grands. Now, if you take all the options,

01:25:31
there are options there, but the one that you dive would be new

01:25:34
15 runs the horizon. I think this is seven to eight grand,

01:25:40
something like that. Okay, so it's meant to be much more

01:25:42
affordable. Yeah, an interesting thing as well is because Marius

01:25:46
is really going full on with this river. They're really this

01:25:49
is something they believe in and they're making all efforts to

01:25:53
try and make it something that you know, spreads and gets lots

01:25:57
of support. There's quite a few dev shops now within Australia

01:26:00
that have signed up for for being part of the horizon

01:26:03
dealership basically. And as a result, if I was flying to

01:26:08
Brisbane to go diving on Straddie which is a fantastic

01:26:11
place by the wait for Manta rays don't have to go to Maldives.

01:26:14
There they are in there in Brisbane, basically, there's a

01:26:17
dead centre there, they do reverse they do arise and and I

01:26:20
can rent a river from there from them. I can rent horizon, the

01:26:24
left to travel with mine.

01:26:25
Matt Waters: Right? Perfect. Yeah, that makes sense. When's

01:26:30
your next trip? Check star triple away?

01:26:32
Nicholas Remy: Um, I haven't planned it actually. I mean, 8x

01:26:36
is just going to be the show and meeting people. The thing is,

01:26:39
I'm very, very fortunate to say that I'm going to become an

01:26:42
Australian citizen soon.

01:26:43
Matt Waters: Hey, congratulations. Thank

01:26:45
Nicholas Remy: you. I'm so happy. I'm so excited. And the

01:26:48
kids as well. But the thing is, we don't know yet when he's

01:26:51
going to be the ceremony, the citizenship or you pledge

01:26:53
allegiance, your loyalty to Australia and all that. Yeah.

01:26:56
And I think once I have the ceremony, that will be a few

01:26:59
weeks for me to wait to get the passport. Yeah, until I have the

01:27:02
passport. I cannot go out of Australia because otherwise I

01:27:04
cannot come back.

01:27:06
Matt Waters: Really? Yeah. But your piano though you're on

01:27:09
permanent residency. Now.

01:27:10
Nicholas Remy: I am. But from the time I become a citizen,

01:27:14
even if I don't have a passport yet, I cannot have a PR visa

01:27:16
anymore, because I'm a citizen. So I cannot go back into the

01:27:19
country harsh.

01:27:21
Matt Waters: Because I'm a little way behind you. Were just

01:27:25
a PR, but probably 18 months, maybe a bit more behind you.

01:27:30
It's gonna be a couple of years before I get my citizenship and

01:27:32
blue passport. But I didn't know that. But

01:27:35
Nicholas Remy: yeah, I think about the day there will be a

01:27:37
few months where you can't really go out of the country. I

01:27:40
mean, you will visit when they booked my trip to edX. I was I

01:27:44
was taking the risk because normally they give you an email

01:27:47
one month before the actual ceremony. And I booked IDEXX

01:27:50
five weeks before it was like, gee, if in the next seven days,

01:27:54
they tell me that's your ceremony, whatever you do, but

01:27:57
they haven't saw should be fine. But yeah, long story short, I'm

01:27:59
not going to book any overseas trip in the next few weeks.

01:28:03
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, that makes sense. Huh? Hey,

01:28:09
let's get these questions out. Yeah, it was me.

01:28:17
I've got to put my glasses on. That's one of the big things. I

01:28:20
mean, you mentioned that earlier on, you've got to have like both

01:28:23
I've got a bifocal lens in your mask. To wear glasses.

01:28:28
Nicholas Remy: No, no. Linna used to need analysis, but she

01:28:31
and she and she had it at some point.

01:28:33
Matt Waters: Did she get laser surgery and shit like that?

01:28:36
Yeah. See, I'm I'm I can't remember which way around it is

01:28:40
long side short sighted, whatever it is. I need reading

01:28:43
glasses. Like these things. So I've been told by the optician

01:28:48
that it's not operable. Right. So it's kind of tough shit Matt,

01:28:53
you're going to you're going to grin and bear it. So I ended up

01:28:57
getting I got a prescription lens from AWS Bob, big shout out

01:29:02
to him. He's just up in mono Val optician there and got the

01:29:09
bifocal lenses in and it's it's good. But your eyes continue to

01:29:16
deteriorate further for the first two to five years. Right

01:29:20
so now it's I've had the lenses for a year. I think I might have

01:29:24
to get some more so it's another another sting in the pocket. And

01:29:29
it's torture as well because I used to be really good with the

01:29:31
eyes. So take a macro Yep, was a piece of piss. Yeah, now I've

01:29:36
not only got to manhandle the camera but kind of move the head

01:29:39
to get focused

01:29:40
Nicholas Remy: on the lenses on the when you're watching

01:29:43
something close, right? Yeah, yeah,

01:29:45
Matt Waters: that's why wide angle I'm taking my wide angle

01:29:47
shots at the moment because they're easier to do for me,

01:29:49
Nicholas Remy: but you know what, what you what you might be

01:29:50
able to do with your with your camera. What's your housing

01:29:53
brand? Ikelite Yep. What you might be able to do is get from

01:29:57
a callate a an angled viewfinder. Yeah, that has

01:30:01
optical correction built in. Yeah. And if that's not the

01:30:04
case, I think that you can do one that you might be able to

01:30:06
fit there.