UNDERWATER PHOTOGRAPHY - BSoUP Best Beginners Portfolio 2005

My portfolio Simon Brown
I am 37 and have dived since 1999. 251 dives logged, the last one on a WW2 vintage German Junkers JU-52 transport aeroplane in a frozen lake near Narvik, Norway. Since taking up UW photography in 2001 I have dived twice without a camera. Two or three weeks a month I work as a technical consultant for engineering companies, improving how they manage their data. One week a month I freelance with my travel/underwater photography and written features. My p hotographic gear is Nikon (A couple of F90x bodies, a D70 body, plus lenses) and housings are Subal. Dive gear is nothing special, but having completed an 85 minute dive in 7 degree water (Norway) I can recommend an O'Three drysuit and Forth Element clothing! I almost always dive with a twinset, and carry travel bands so I can build one whatever tanks the operator supplies. My personal rule of "carry as much air as possible - you can't get more down there" has never let me down and has saved another divers life on one occasion. I dive wherever the job takes me, from the Arctic to the tropics, in fresh or salt water. Having reviewed my logbook (from dive 125 to 250) there are a total of 13 different countries represented, from Europe, North America, Africa and New Zealand. I usually look for the more unusual and off-beat dive sites such as Marico Oog in South Africa (remote spring), Pupu springs in New Zealand (ditto) or the JU-52 in Norway. I have never dived the Red Sea. Plenty of photographers go there and have taken better images than I am capable of, but I would like to go one day. There is little time for other hobbies or interests, but I am a competent off-road motorcyclist and I am planning to ride a trail bike across the Namib Desert in search of prehistoric rock art sites next year. Website http://ww.simonbrownimages.com
	1. Shark feed in Nassau, Bahamas. F90x in a Subal housing with 16mm fisheye. F5.6 at 200th. Fuji Velvia 100F. Taken to support a feature on shark feeding for SportDIVER magazine. 13 individual sharks in this frame, with the closest around 20cm from the dome. Composition was tricky, I was bumped and barged by the sharks as the fed including one head-on collision that pulled my mask off. Great fun tho.
	2. Split level kayak, Sardinia. F90x in a Subal housing with 16mm fisheye. F8 at 160th. Fuji Velvia 100F. Taken to support a feature on kayaking in Sardinia. The kayaker was under instruction to deliver this image and was held by an assistant at the bows to prevent her drifting off.
	3. The wreck of the Tropic Trader, Bahamas. F90x in a Subal housing with 16mm fisheye. F5.6 at 30th. Fuji Velvia 100F. Taken to support a feature on diving in the Bahamas for SportDIVER magazine. A fairly new, clean wreck.
	4. Bigeye. Sodwana Bay, South Africa. F90x in a Subal housing with 28-105 zoom macro. F5.6 at 125th. Fuji Velvia 100F. Taken because I liked the character! Has published in SportDIVER. Spent 20 minutes with this fish, and eventually he relaxed and let me photograph him.
	5. The deck gun of the KT-12, Sardinia. F90x in a Subal housing with 16mm fisheye. F5.6 at 30th. Fuji Velvia 100F. Taken to support a feature about the KT-12, currently with DIVE magazine. The model was Italian, but underwater the language barrier is irrelevant. This image was not meant to exist - I pressed the shutter too soon before the strobes had recycled. The flash lit example is not as pretty and lacks the punch of this one. A nice mistake.
	6. Anemone detail. Carmel Bay, California. F90x in a Subal housing with 28-105 zoom macro. F16 at 125th. Fuji Velvia 100F. Taken to support a feature about diving in California. Currently with SportDIVER magazine. Was told off by the boat skipper "for being down too long" despite asking him if there was a time limit to the dive before I got in. For the next dive I put on a second Fourth Element jumper to beat the cold and increased my dive time by 10 minutes just to remind him who the customer was......this was one image from that dive.