Scuba Diver Australasia + Ocean Planet
>> Henley Spiers
The invention of scuba diving was driven by man’s desire to explore, and a generation watched in fascination as Jacques Cousteau and Hans Hass brought us underwater images of things we had never seen. Today, scuba diving is so accessible and widely practised that we have lost much of the wonder of exploration that first accompanied it. Blackwater diving, which takes the diver into an undocumented underwater world, is a way to regain that wonder as new discoveries await in the shadows.
Needlefish hunting beneath the surface by: Henley Spiers
WHEN April 2019
WHERE Moalboal, Cebu, Philippines
HOW Nikon D850, Nauticam housing 60mm lens (f/22, 1s, ISO 125)
Blackwater diving is not new. Indeed, in Christopher Newbert’s Within a Rainbowed
Sea, published in 1984, he recounts descending in a cage into Hawaiian waters and spending all night waiting for creatures to emerge from the deep. However, I believe we are now entering the golden age of blackwater diving, with the perfect mix of accessibility and unexplored terrain. Blackwater diving is fast gaining momentum, giving rise to an inspired community of divers and underwater photographers who use social media to share advice on techniques and findings from all corners of the globe. As a diver, you can now easily sign up for a blackwater dive with expert operators. Blackwater diving is daunting at first but incredibly addictive. Blackwater diving is cool. Blackwater diving is a new frontier for all the underwater explorers.
Twenty years ago my own love affair with diving began and I watched in fascination as the life of coral reefs unravelled before me. Today, the reefs are like old friends, but
I still enjoy their beauty that I have become
familiar with. I am a newcomer to blackwater diving but what I love most is the sense of exploration – not knowing what you might see and find next. This sometimes takes the form of creatures so weird that even after extensive research, I struggle to identify them. In my blackwater images to date, I have tried to capture the “greatest migration on Earth”, as David Attenborough famously described it. The life here is amazing and a wonder to observe, but it is also in perpetual movement and a challenge to photograph!