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However, by 1979 underwater
photography took over as his main commercial activity. He became
involved in the filming of TV commercials and features, but his heart
was always in the natural history and documentary fields.
His break came when the BBC Natural
History Unit mounted an expedition to the Comoros Islands to search
for coelacanths, a fish once thought to have been extinct for
millions of years.
Word had reached the Unit of a special
low-light camera that Peter had developed. They wanted to hire it but
he said it was only available if he could come along to operate
it.
That was the first time he met Sir
David Attenborough, the familiar face and voice of so many natural
history films and documentaries.
In those early days the only way to
film in the depths of the Mozambique Channel was to suspend the
camera from a 320m-long cable but after many unsuccessful days of
searching it jammed in the cleft of a reef and was lost.
However, as the crew were packing up
to return home, Peter learned a fisherman had caught a specimen and
it was tied to his canoe in the local harbour.
He persuaded the fisherman to let him
photograph the fish. It made a few swimming movements while Peter
filmed it and took still pictures. They were the first in the world
of a living coelacanth.
Scoones went on to become one of the
Unit's core underwater cameramen. He played a major part in many
ground-breaking series including the first live outside broadcasts
from underwater in the Red Sea.
Peter was renowned for his
self-sufficiency and resourcefulness in the field. Martha Holmes, one
of the original bubble-helmeted presenters in that series who went on
to be the producer on many of Scoones expeditions remarked: 'Peter's
contribution to the underwater wildlife making community is
immeasurable. He was a visionary who, ahead of the game, recognised
that the advent of video cameras would revolutionise underwater
filming."
Others were slow to adapt, but Peter
forged ahead modifying cameras to fit into his own underwater
housings. Not only would he do this in the comfort of his workshop,
he would be doing it on a rolling boat in the middle of the Southern
Ocean, or minutes before an annual marine event that would not wait
for him or his perfections."
For 30 years Peter was at the
forefront of underwater filming technology. For Reefwatch,
the first live broadcast from underwater, he advised on the
adaptation of studio cameras for the equivalent of an underwater
studio in the Red Sea."
He led the way with his technical
expertise and kept the cameras alive and well throughout Sea
Trek, Life in the Freezer and Blue Planet. Peter always
saw a problem as a challenge to be overcome, and overcome them he
did.
This ability enabled him to make
special items to obtain unique footage such as operating a housed
camera on a pole from the surface - the 'pole-cam' is now widely used
- to obtain the first shots of a great white shark swimming naturally
in the sea rather than gnawing at the bars of a safety cage or at
hunks of meat suspended over the side of a boat.
Talking about his talents, Sir David
said that Peter had a remarkable gift for composition and understood
fish as other cameramen understood chimpanzees or spiders. He knew
fish so well he could sense what they were going to do. You could see
it in his footage. He moved as the fish moved.
The late Rob Palmer, a noted cave
diver, used to relish recounting how Peter ran out of air while far
into the labyrinth depths of Jamaica's Blue Holes. Calmly Peter spat
out one mouthpiece, fished about with one hand, found that for his
reserve air supply and switched it on. When viewed later the slow pan
from one side of the vast chamber to the other was rock steady.
In 1999, for his significant
contributions to underwater photography he was included in Scuba
Schools International's directory of the world's most elite divers
by becoming a Platinum Pro 5000 diver, joining the ranks of such
pioneers as Hans Hass, Jacques Cousteau and many others.
Said Joss Woolf, BSoUP's chairman:
Peter was a legend in his own lifetime. As well as a pioneer and
innovator, he was a perfectionist who always wanted to improve his
footage. He was an inspiration to underwater photographers throughout
the world.
Said the Society's co-founder Colin
Doeg: He was a driving force in the creation and progress of BSoUP,
which was formed in 1967 and continues to thrive. He originated or
was involved in the development of many features of underwater camera
housings that today are commonplace and available off the shelf.
At first we used to meet in the front
room of his house. He knocked down a wall so we had more space and
could project our underwater images at a larger size.
Even in the world of early underwater
photographers he was unique. He was a fearless cameraman, taking
everything in his stride from piranhas and killer whales to
alligators and elephants as well as diving under ice and deep
underground but his trademark footage was shot on coral reefs. He
always refused to eat reef fish, they were his subjects.
Typical of the regard in which he was
held by other underwater photographers and cameramen were the
reflections of photo-journalist Alex Mustard. He said: Peter was an
innovator, never content merely to produce excellent images. He
always wanted to push back the boundaries and thrill his audiences
with visuals they had never seen before.
His engineering prowess was instrumental in driving his creativity.
His other trump card was his field craft. He knew where to find his
subjects and how to approach them photographically.
Over the years Scoones won many awards
for his pictures and films. He won an Emmy and a Bafta for technical
achievement for his work in both the Great White Shark and
Reefwatch programmes. In addition, he was twice awarded a
Palme d'Or at the Antibes Film Festival in France for his work. In
1993 he was named Diver of the Year by the British Sub-Aqua Club for
his significant contribution to the diving industry.
He was twice British Underwater
Photographer of the Year and recently BSoUP, the Society he co-
founded, awarded him its first lifetime achievement award for his
exceptional contribution to underwater photography.
Unlike other cameramen, he did not
attach lights to his cameras. Instead, the lighting was handled by
his wife Georgette Douwma, herself a talented underwater photographer
and artist. His buddy for a major part of his career, both underwater
and in life, she instinctively knew how he wanted his subjects to be
lit.
As well as Georgette he leaves two
children by his first marriage, Fiona and Robin.
See also DIVER Magazine, DIVE Magazine, Sport Diver Magazine (Facebook), wetpixel, The Times, The Telegraph, Daily Express
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