Environmental and Underwater Photographer

Tyler Strain, Don Shirley and Rob McKelvet prepare to enter the caves at Komati Springs.

Longer, harder, deeper! As a photographer, I am always looking for different perspectives on subjects or for access to subjects that others don’t have. The world is saturated with imagery, so to compete one has to do things differently in order to differentiate yourself or find subjects that very few others can get access to. It was Didier Noirot who got me onto rebreathers after out Sardine Run shoot in 2008, and since then I have been sytematically developing my understanding of these astounding machines, under the guidance of dedicated rebreather divers such as Barry Bey-Leveld of Dive Action in Cape Town and Sheldon Brown and Shane Jackson of Zero Bubble in Durban. This effort put me in a position to complete my formal CCR (Closed Circuit Rebreather) training this ast week up at Komati Springs with Don and Andre Shirley, arguably one of the most intense weeks of my life on a number of levels, including a near death experience on the road when Tyler Strain and I narrowly missed being crushed by a large truck as we turned off to Don’s place. Once I have completed a tighter selection of images I will post them under the Expedition section of this site.

Chris Serfontein of Aqua Divers on a Poseidon Discovery Rebreather and Rob McKelvey in an Inspiration Classic prepare to exit level three of the Komati Springs Cave’s.

In November a team of us drove the 1200km’s north from Durban in South Africa to the coastal town of Tofo in Mozambique, an area renowned for its fecund manta population. All on rebreathers, the plan was to spend as much time underwater as possible, sorb and OTU’s allowing. A couple of curve balls presented themselves - no manta’s, some radical cold thermoclines at 30 meters of around 15 degrees celcius, and four lost divers at sea, all of which were resolved philosophically and without incident. It was my first time diving the area, but the potential was acutely obvious. Noteworthy on a reef named Gallaria were these aggregations of green coral trees which had been colonised by a myriad of life forms, as illustrated in the picture above. If you plan to dive this area, look up Diversity Scuba, they would be my dive charter of choice if we did not have a boat.

If its solitude and reflection you are looking for in a travel destination, Namibia must rate as one of the best in the world, with its low population density, temperate climate and epic desert wilderness adding up to a great experience of wilderness.

Taking advantage of all three of these, Mowani Mountain Lodge in Damaraland embeds you in a pre-historic wilderness with an optimal blend of comfort and exposure. On assignment for Conde Nast House and Garden South Africa, I recently spent two days shooting this lodge and the surrounding environment, which although not a wilderness park per se, is home to small herds of desert elephant. If you are traveling through this area, I can strongly recommend a stay over at Mowani, or alternatively its smaller brother, Kitwe. For more info on the lodge, which is owned and managed by Andre Nel, check out the November South African edition of House and Garden, or visit their website here.

Didier Noirot, myself and the Foster Brothers have just got back from a remarkable shoot in the Okavango Delta, in which we built on Didier’s pioneering work with filming large nile crocodiles underwater. Based on a houseboat called ‘The Kubu Queen’ which is operated by Greg “River Billy” Tompson, we spent two weeks exploring the underwater world of this incredible natural phenomenon. Next year we are hoping to return for a second season of shooting, to build on the sequences we shot this year, and to then work on the release of a documentary on the experience.

The forces are massing! Its that time of the year again, where we wait in expectation of an annual natural spectacle of truly epic potential. I am down in East London at the moment with one of the Earth-Touch Marine crews, Barry Skinstad and Ian Cook, covering the build up to Sardine Run 2009. This image of a common dolphin leaping out of the water was shot this morning, part of a large hunting pod that we estimated to contain between 500 and 1000 animals. To follow our progress daily, check out the Earth-Touch Marine blog, or follow us on Twitter.

I have been working through my archive recently in preparation for a stock submission. This is one of my favourite shots from that climb of our group descending Kilimanjaro, as the sun rises off to our left.

This is another, the ‘Judge”, Daniel Ramczyk resting on Day 1 at our first camp site.

The plant-water interface fascinates me aesthetically - there is something radically surreal and Darwinian about submerged organic life that evokes the primal ooze from which all life purportedly sprang. These rib like structures are home to a myriad species of cichlids, who have invariable adapted to make this type of unique habitat there own. Shot off Thumbi Island, Lake Malawi.

While shooting an afternoon time lapse of village life next to Gecko Lounge, I noticed these local kids using a parked boat as a diving platform. This image in particular for me sums up the mood of Cape Maclear - languid, warm, relaxed - it demands blissful submission to nothingness.

Have just returned from a two week Earth-Touch shoot with Grant Brokensha in Lake Malawi, the purpose of which was to document the natural behaviour and amazing diversity of the cichlid fish species. Cichlids are a species of carp that have come to dominate Lake Malawi, with over 700 species endemic to the lake alone. They are a classic example of ‘Explosive Radiation”, a term coined by experts to describe their ability to evolve physically and behaviourally to take advantage of niche habitats in order to exploit a variety of food sources, typically in times when food was scarce. Grant and I experienced first hand the variety of these ncihe’s, from rocky boulders to grassy bottoms to forest like underwater landscapes, each providing a home for a different group of cichlids. To get a better sense of the expedition, and to see cichlid mouth brooding behavior, check out http://marine.earth-touch.com.

Came across this on YouTube, part of the BBC’s promotion of the series, some cool footage of the SUBImagery Team in action…