underwatercolours (Bonnie Pelnar)

Forum username: underwatercolours
Real name: Bonnie Pelnar
Posts: 434
Active years: 2003–2020
Primary forums: Photography Gear and Technique, Copyright Issues, Trip Reports and Travel, General Chat
Specialization: Digital workflow, data storage, copyright advocacy, trip reports, photographic composition

Community Role

Bonnie Pelnar, known as underwatercolours, was one of the early and most distinctive voices in the Wetpixel community. Active from March 2003 through 2020, she contributed 434 posts that spanned technical workflow discussions, passionate copyright advocacy, detailed trip reports, and gear recommendations. She was a Mac user, a prolific dive traveler, and a professional underwater photographer who ran her own website (theunderwaterphotographer.com) and maintained over 110 websites in her professional work.

Bonnie’s presence in the community predated many of the forum’s growth years, and she was recognized by Wetpixel editorial staff as a notable member. A 2008 article on Wetpixel announced her presentation on photographic composition at the Los Angeles Underwater Photographic Society (LAUPS), describing her as “Wetpixel member Bonnie Pelnar (underwatercolours)” (^[1]).

Notable Contributions

Copyright Advocacy

Bonnie was one of the Wetpixel community’s most vocal advocates for photographer copyright protection. Her involvement began with her very first significant post in March 2003, when she reported that CDNN (Cyber Diver News Network) had been using her photographs from Galapagos, Palau, BVI, and Truk without permission for over a year despite repeated requests for removal. She argued that Wetpixel should create a copyright section for the forums and provided detailed guidance on stock photography pricing — explaining the difference between royalty-free and traditional licensing, citing tools like Cradoc FotoQuote and the EditorialPhoto.com calculator, and noting that image prices could range from $400 to $1,900 depending on usage (^[2]).

In 2008, she discovered her photos had been stolen by divemaster.com for their dive site directory. She alerted the community, and fellow member scubamarli researched and posted the site’s WHOIS information. The thread (30 replies) became another case study in how photographers could respond to unauthorized image use (^[3]).

She also participated in threads about CBS News using member photos without permission and Google Images reverse search for detecting unauthorized use of underwater photographs (^[4], ^[5]).

Digital Workflow and Data Storage

Bonnie was one of the community’s most technically informed voices on digital workflow and data storage. In 2007, she started a major thread (58 replies) on 1TB hard drives and RAID configurations for archiving underwater photography, which evolved into a comprehensive community discussion about RAID levels, backup strategies, and drive reliability. She described archiving her entire collection — originals on DVD plus processed TIFF copies — across multiple drives, noting that she kept even bad photos as examples for her workshop presentations (^[6]).

Her 2006 thread on travel laptops (53 replies) was prompted by her connection to the Solmar V liveaboard, whose new owners asked her advice on whether to install Mac or Windows computers for guests. The thread became one of the forum’s periodic Mac vs. Windows discussions (^[7]).

Detailed Trip Reports

Bonnie wrote extensive, photo-rich trip reports that were praised by community members for their thoroughness. Her 2011 Raja Ampat trip report aboard the Dive-Damai liveaboard was particularly well-received, with members commenting on her entertaining writing style and the blue-ringed octopus encounter she described. She wrote her reports with “tons of detail to hopefully answer the questions of anyone thinking about diving in the area” (^[8]).

Presentation and Teaching

Bonnie gave presentations on photographic composition at LAUPS, covering both underwater and topside applications, including analysis of competition-winning photographs. She also conducted workshops where she used examples of unsuccessful photos to teach what not to do (^[9]).

Activity Profile

• First post: March 2003
• Last post: March 2020
• Peak years: 2003–2011
• 99 threads started (high ratio of thread creation to replies, indicating frequent topic initiation)
• 3 article comments left
• Mentioned in 1 editorial article
• Top threads: “Hitachi 1TB Hard Drive (and RAID discussion)” (58 replies), “What laptop do you travel with?” (53 replies), “Lots of stolen photos on Divemaster.com” (30 replies), “Dive-Damai Raja Ampat trip report” (26 replies), “CDNN” (22 replies)
• Dive destinations mentioned: Galapagos, Palau, BVI, Truk, Raja Ampat, Sea of Cortez (Solmar V), Fiji, Bali, Socorro, Hawaii, Cozumel, Lembeh