Marine Dioramas

[pachyrhinosaurus]

Having bought a few of the Schleich sealife pieces, I had plans to photograph them in a diorama setting. I had one problem, though. I didn't know how or where to do take pictures which looked as if the animals actually belonged in their setting. Has anyone done this before, or know a way to accomplish this? I thank hose who reply.

[brontodocus]

I had different thoughts about how underwater diorama shots might be done and how they might look best. One idea was using an aquarium full of polymer for self making hair gel but I'm not sure if the gel may affect the paint over time (and all the gel could make quite a mess, too ). The other is to make photos that actually are taken under water (I've seen very nice photos by a fellow collector who photographed prehistoric marine animal figures under water). I would love to do similar pictures but I never really tried to do so.

[pachyrhinosaurus]

I had different thoughts about how underwater diorama shots might be done and how they might look best. One idea was using an aquarium full of polymer for self making hair gel but I'm not sure if the gel may affect the paint over time (and all the gel could make quite a mess, too ). The other is to make photos that actually are taken under water (I've seen very nice photos by a fellow collector who photographed prehistoric marine animal figures under water). I would love to do similar pictures but I never really tried to do so.

That's a good idea, with taking photographs underwater, I'm not sure how I missed something so obvious, although my camera will not be able to do it.
The only idea I had for myself was to take close-up pictures of whales and such against the sky to appear as if they are jumping out.

[sbell]

I had different thoughts about how underwater diorama shots might be done and how they might look best. One idea was using an aquarium full of polymer for self making hair gel but I'm not sure if the gel may affect the paint over time (and all the gel could make quite a mess, too ). The other is to make photos that actually are taken under water (I've seen very nice photos by a fellow collector who photographed prehistoric marine animal figures under water). I would love to do similar pictures but I never really tried to do so.

That's a good idea, with taking photographs underwater, I'm not sure how I missed something so obvious, although my camera will not be able to do it.
The only idea I had for myself was to take close-up pictures of whales and such against the sky to appear as if they are jumping out.

I don't think he meant to submerge the camera--often the shots are through glass (like aquariums) or through the surface of the water from above.

[brontodocus]

Well, actually I meant both - photos of an aquarium filled with gel or water could be photographed through glass but the photos of the fellow collector I was referring to were indeed made with an underwater camera in a stream and the figures were hanging on threads which were photoshopped away later.

[pachyrhinosaurus]

Thank you for the advice. I'll have to try this.

[stargatedalek]

sorry for the necro, but I felt like posting somethings that tend to work for me when I do aquatic dios
hope this is still relevant

what I do mainly is I just apply a haze or reflection effect afterwards, which allows me to focus on the substrate without worrying about real liquids, but it doesn't give the best effects and feels like cheating sometimes

another neat trick for dios shot from above the surface is to use a glass coffee table (I assume any plain of glass would work, but I find this to be easiest since you get a convenient ledge underneath) and apply substrate underneath, it can get rather messy if you decide to use loose substrate

[Jetoar]

I did a underwater diorama for the DTF contest of the last year and I used a aquarium and after, I used Photoshop to ad some effects  .