We present a family of dipole models for describing the far-field hydrodynamic interactions in populations of self-propelled bodies. Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, the dipolar far-field effect is descriptive of swimming bodies (e.g., fish) at high Re numbers as well as self-propelled particles (e.g., bacteria) in confined geometries such as in Hele-Shaw cells. We argue that our models can be used in both contexts, that is, fish schooling and confined motile micro-particles. We then discuss some of the physical insights these models bring to the large-scale behavior of these systems.