PUBLISHER’S NOTE

Since colour images of the underwater world first started appearing in magazines, we have become accustomed to seeing stunning underwater subjects framed against the ocean’s beautiful natural blue hues. But turn that background pure black and you create stark portraits of marine life that evoke completely different emotions in the viewer. In 2007, Scuba Diver AUSTRALASIA put its first black background image on the cover. The photo, taken by William Tan, made the cover one of the most powerful in the magazine’s history, and the issue became one of our most popular.

Now, in 2017, Scuba Diver OCEAN PLANET celebrates a decade of black-background underwater photography with the stunning imagery of a group of incredibly gifted Chinese shooters from Singapore, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. William Tan is joined by Aaron Wong, Alan Lo, Yorko Summer, Jim Chen, Lynn Wu, Ace Wu, Fan Zhang, Yue Hong

Jun and Jonathan Lin, to bring readers a whole new world of underwater black backgrounds. Black Is the New Blue is a thrilling showcase of some of the best underwater photography with black backgrounds. And with photography tips and tricks throughout, the spirit of our original Scuba Diver AUSTRALASIA magazine lives on. Launched as part of the ADEX China 2017 Book Festival, this book includes text in both English and Chinese – a nod to the amazingly talented underwater shooters across the Asian region.

Learn, Lead, Inspire

John Thet