Underwater photography is the process of taking photographs while under water. It is usually done while scuba diving, but can be done while diving on surface supply, snorkeling, swimming, from a submersible or remotely operated underwater vehicle, or from automated cameras lowered from the surface.
Eric Cheng is a Taiwanese American entrepreneur, professional photographer, and Emmy-nominated executive producer specializing in virtual reality, underwater photography, and aerial imaging. He is Head of Immersive Media at Facebook Reality Labs.
The 1992 cageless shark-diving expedition was the world's first recorded intentionally cageless dive with great white sharks, contributing to a change in public opinions about the supposed ferocity of these animals.
David Doubilęt is an underwater photographer known primarily for his work published in National Geographic magazine, where he is a contributing photographer and has been an author for 70 feature articles since 1971. He was born in New York City and started taking photos underwater at the young age of 12. He started with a Brownie Hawkeye in a rubber anesthesiologist's bag to keep the water out of the camera. He lived with his family in New York City and spent summers in Elberon New Jersey exploring the Atlantic. He later worked as a diver and photographer for the Sandy Hook Marine Laboratories in New Jersey and spent much of his youth in the Caribbean as a teenage dive instructor in the Bahamas where he found his motivation to capture the beauty of the sea and everything in it. His wife is the photographer Jennifer Hayes.
Shark tourism is a form of eco-tourism that allows people to dive with sharks in their natural environment. This benefits local shark populations by educating tourists and through funds raised by the shark tourism industry. Communities that previously relied on shark finning to make their livelihoods are able to make a larger profit from diving tours while protecting the local environment. People can get close to the sharks by free- or scuba diving or by entering the water in a protective cage for more aggressive species. Many of these dives are done by private companies and are often baited to ensure shark sightings, a practice which is highly controversial and under review in many areas.
Stephen Frink is a prolific underwater photographer, wildlife photographer, photo journalist, editor and publisher. Frink has contributed to Skin Diver magazine and Scuba Diving magazine. He is currently the publisher of Alert Diver magazine, an upscale quarterly publication for the Divers Alert Network.
Brian Skerry is an American photojournalist and film producer specializing in marine life and ocean environments. Since 1998 he has been a contributing photographer for National Geographic magazine with more than 30 stories to his credit, including seven covers. In 2021 Skerry won a Primetime Emmy Award for his role as producer in the miniseries, Secrets of the Whales.
Ryan Johnson is a marine biologist specializing in researching sharks. He is best known for the shark documentaries that he features in and hosts.
Michele Westmorland is an American photographer who specializes in underwater photography. She is a fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers and The Explorers Club. She runs Westmorland Images in Redmond, Washington, where she resides.
Jonathan Bird is an American photographer, cinematographer, director and television host. He is best known for his role as the host of Jonathan Bird's Blue World, a family-friendly underwater exploration program on public television in the United States. His work is largely underwater in nature.
David J. Hall is an underwater wildlife photographer, author, and naturalist. His photographs have appeared in hundreds of books, magazines, calendars, and other print media worldwide, including National Geographic, Smithsonian, Natural History, Sierra, Time, Science, Scientific American, Geo, Terre Sauvage, and BBC Wildlife. He is the recipient of many awards, including first place in two categories of the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year, first place in both the Nature's Best and Sierra magazine competitions, and third place in the Festival Mondial de l'Image Sous-Marine. He is also the recipient of an award from the International Institute for Species Exploration, for research leading to his co-authorship of the description of Histiophryne psychedelica, Psychedelic Frogfish, and generally considered to be one of the ten most significant new species described in 2009.
Lesley Rochat is a South African marine and shark conservationist, campaigner, wildlife filmmaker, underwater photographer, environmental writer, author, speaker and activist. She founded the non-profit organisation AfriOceans Conservation Alliance in 2003 for which she is the chief executive officer.
Jonathan Blair (1941-2017) was an American photographer who has worked for the National Geographic Society since 1970s. His photographs have been published in Time, Life and Newsweek, and The New York Times Magazine, as well as in a photographic book called Outlaw Trail, which was an international best seller. His photography is diverse, ranging from underwater shipwrecks, to wildlife on the Pacific Islands to the Wild West in the United States. However, he specialized in natural history and deep ocean photography.
Andrea Marshall is a marine biologist known for wildlife conservation and research on large marine animals like manta rays & whale sharks. Marshall is co-founder and a principal scientist of the Marine Megafauna Foundation, where she leads many of MMF’s projects around the world.
Hannah Fraser, known professionally as Hannah Mermaid, is a professional model, actress, dancer, and performer who specialises in underwater and ocean-oriented freediving performances, often in mermaid costume. She is a central figure in modern mermaiding and is an ocean ecology activist.
Pete Oxford is a British-born conservation photographer based in Cape Town, South Africa, after living in Quito, Ecuador for several years. Originally trained as a marine biologist, he and his wife, South African-born Reneé Bish, now work as a professional photographic team focusing primarily on wildlife and indigenous cultures.
Valerie May Taylor AM is an Australian conservationist, photographer, and filmmaker, and an inaugural member of the diving hall of fame. With her husband Ron Taylor, she made documentaries about sharks, and filmed sequences for films including Jaws (1975).
Scott Portelli is an underwater photographer and nature photographer from Mosman, New South Wales, Australia. Portelli won numerous national and international nature photography awards between 2015 and 2020 and is best known for his underwater images of whales and dolphins.
Bill Curtsinger is an American photographer and writer who publishes on underwater photography and natural history subjects. Curtsinger has photographed thirty-five articles, including six cover stories for National Geographic and a cover story for Life. His photos have also appeared in Smithsonian, Natural History, various scientific journals, and a number of books worldwide.
Simon J Pierce is a marine biologist and conservationist known for discovering, studying, and protecting large marine animals such as whale sharks and manta rays. He is the co-founder and principal scientist of the Marine Megafauna Foundation.
