Here's a few:

1 - learn to dive first. This sounds obvious, but by "learn to dive" I
don't mean just get certified. I mean become very proficient first, to
the point that you can focus on the photography without worrying about
holding your position in the water column. Depending on your skill
level, 25 dives post certification is probably a minimum.

2 - Consider booking a liveaboard trip focused on U/W photography.
Nothing teaches you better than a few days of doing nothing but taking
and evaluating photographs.

3 - Consider subscribing to, then *lurking* on the U/W photography mail
list. They make us look positively tolerant of newbies, so lurk for a
while before posting.

4 - Buy Jim Church's book on U/W composition.

5 - Don't listen to anything Cathy Church has to say about buoyancy
compensators.

6 - Take everything you learn on Usenet and web based bulliten boards
with a huge grain of salt. Be especially wary of moderated forums where
protecting fragile egos takes precidence over good advice.

Alan

DON'T!

the demand is to small to allow more than a few to make a living
strickly from underwater work - only a handfull of shooters can.
even the churches never made a living from shooting - they made a living
teaching others to do it.

1 -- Take the lense cap off.
2 -- Point the camera towards your subject.
3 -- Take lots of photos and hopefully the law of averages will catch up
with you and one or two will be worth keeping.  The great thing about
digital photography is that you don't feel so bad when you only get 1 keeper
out of 100 attempts...

As an amateur photographer, your keeper to attempt ratio will start out kind
of low and slowly increase... Unfortunately, as you get more experience,
your standards will rise which might result in the ratio starting to
decrease... <grin>

As a professional photographer, your standards are supposed to be higher, so
unless your ability also increases, you ratio is going to decrease...

Perhaps Steve Kramer, as a professional photographer, would like to
enlighten us on what his keeper to attempt ratio might be...

asd1122@hometel.com (Caroyl) entertained us with:

1. Become a very good diver.
2. Become a very good photographer.
3. Learn that completing steps 1 and 2 will not make you a good underwater
photographer.
4. Get really good at underwater photography.
5. Try to sell your pictures.

James Connell gave you a better answer, Don't.

Dan Bracuk
As Big Ben said to the Leaning Tower of Pisa, I've got the time if you've got the inclination.
The Best of Rec.Scuba
http://www.pathcom.com/~bracuk/RecScuba/

Generally speaking, because of all of the good amateurs out there who
don't need the money but would love the noteriety, the supply of good
product exceeds the demand, which means that a career in the field isn't
going to be all that easy, or financially rewarding.

You should also research the differences between Speculative work and
Commission work.  In UW photography, both types exist, but probably 90%
of the Commission work worldwide is done by but a handful of
individuals...Howard Hall, Stan Waterman, Steven Frinks, etc.  And many
of these then also suppliment their income through other means, such as
by hosting special liveaboard trips, training classes, etc.  Not that
this is unique to UW photography...

-hh