I have found getting old and venerable :
helps nowadays. A lot of younger cavers seem happy to pose for an old codger with a camera especially as I always sent them copies. Clive Westlake is good like that - giving people nice prints from his trips. Like OR when I was younger cave photography was barely tolerated yet everybody wanted to see pics afterwards. I must say reliability of equipment helps as well and not lugging huge boxes and tripods underground. Radio slaves and compact but high quality digital has made that possible as well as lightweight waterproof polyprop cases. I still get a kick out of taking pics underground even after half a century. Trouble is my older models looks rather jaded in the shots to the extent that my shorter mates (no name no pack drill) deserve my epithet of 'knackered gnome'.
So what you want is nice shiny dynamic models and lots of adoring acolytes. Having had a few published or having won an award helps as well I suspect.
Or get an Olympus Tough like OR and concentrate on candids rather than set up shots.