Archives: Photographers

Matt Meier

Matthew is a professional underwater, nature and travel photographer based in San Diego, California.

Matthew studied commercial photography at the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California, completing their Masters program. His work has appeared in magazines, books, in museums and as fine art prints.

For the past several years, Matthew has served as an editor and rep for X-Ray Magazine, an International Scuba Diving publication, often traveling to photograph and write travel stories for the magazine.

His latest story on diving in Cuba may be viewed with THIS LINK.

Mark Strickland

Mark’s life-long interest in the sea has included over 10,000 dives and careers as lifeguard, boat captain and scuba instructor.

His passion for underwater photography has led him to many top dive locales, including Thailand, where he spent 17 years as Cruise Director on a series of liveaboards.

An avid marine naturalist, Mark has discovered several nudibranch species.

He is co-author and principle photographer for Lonely Planet’s award-winning book, “Diving and Snorkeling Thailand”, and his work appears in many magazines, books and displays around the world. Currently, Mark leads several dive trips each year to his favorite destinations, while working on a career-spanning large-format pictorial book.

William Tan

A keen follower of Cousteau’s documentaries of the underwater world, William has been a certified diver since 1994. William Tan has been fascinated with the creatures of the sea since childhood. While studying at the Johns Hopkins University (USA), much of his spare time was spent gazing at the extensive marine collection of the National Aquarium in Baltimore.

Officially, he plays the violin with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra but he still makes time for assignments with dive magazines, tourism organizations and resorts, which allows him to travel extensively in the Asia Pacific region (albeit without his prized antique Italian violin).

William believes that cultivating knowledge and understanding of marine life is the key to long-term concern for and preservation of our rich marine heritage.

As a photographer he is famed for his captivating macro images, specializing in close-up shots of photogenic marine life, but he is a master of all underwater photography skills and a patient teacher. His photographic book “Gorontalo: Hidden Paradise”, published under the commission of the Indonesian government, sees him collaborating with Hong Kong’s leading underwater photographers Stephen Wong and Takako Uno.

  • Find out more about William Tan’s photographic style in the magazine interview at THIS LINK
  • Keep up to date with this specific trip at our FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE

Richard Smith

Dr Richard Smith combines an in-depth academic knowledge of the marine environment with a goal of educating and impassioning people about the ocean through his images.

Richard learnt to dive in 1996 and since then he has logged over 2500 dives.

Diving allows Richard to indulge his love of natural history and through his skills as a photographer he is able to communicate his love to a wider audience. Richard’s academic background enables him to document the ocean realm with unique and stunning images.

His undergraduate honours degree in Zoology and Master’s in Marine Ecology and Evolution were followed by the first ecological research on pygmy seahorses.

In 2007 Richard began researching for his PhD on the biology and conservation of pygmy seahorses, which was awarded in April 2011. His work focuses on the gorgonian-associated species, Denise’s (Hippocampus denise) and Bargibant’s pygmy seahorses (Hippocampus bargibanti). His focus was population dynamics, reproductive and social behaviour, habitat use and conservation. Richard’s ground breaking research found these diminutive fish to be surprisingly pugnacious and promiscuous, have one of the lowest population densities of any seahorse and be sensitive to certain actions carried out by divers, such as the use of bright lights and accidental touching of them or their gorgonian home.

Richard is regularly published internationally with a primary focus on conservation, marine life and scuba related travel, for publications including: Sport Diving (Australasia), Alert Diver, Asian Diver, Scuba Diver AustralAsia, Sport Diver (UK), Australian Geographic, Dive Photo Guide. Richard also supports conservation initiatives such as ARKive, The Zoological Society of London and EDGE of Existence (Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered) with images.

Monty Halls

Monty has been passionate about the oceans and wildlife for as long as he can remember.

He has written 7 books and has presented programmes for TV channels such as National Geographic and the Discovery Channel.

Monty is a well-known BBC television presenter, with a particular record of making adventure and natural history series (see more details below).

Monty served as a Royal Marines Officer for 8 years, worked for Nelson Mandela after his release from prison (Mr Mandela’s release, not Monty’s), and has led numerous expeditions throughout the world. This has included leading a multi-national team to the ruins of a sunken city off India, several circumnavigations of the globe, and numerous demanding projects with film crews and scientific teams.

In 2003 he was awarded the Bish Medal by the Scientific Exploration Society for his services to exploration. He established Monty Halls Ltd in 2004, a business that has grown year on year and now deals in many aspects of film production and corporate training.

 

MONTY TV: Take a look at his series of Great Ocean Adventures (circumnavigating the globe, seeking out encounters with some of the most iconic creatures in the ocean … taking 37 flights around the world, conducting over a hundred dives… and meeting the giant sun fish off Bali) www.montyhalls.co.uk/tv-series/great-ocean-adventures. Or his more recent projects such as the initial Great Escape (renovating a centuries old bothy, exploring old crofting techniques, and making forays into the extraordinary archipelago that is the Western Isles, one of the most beautiful regions on earth. Basking sharks, whales, dolphins, and otters have all passed by the beach upon which the bothy sits, with the real exploration of the mountains and ridges only just beginning) www.montyhalls.co.uk/tv-series/monty-halls-great-escape. Or for a more dive-central Great Escape see his series in Ireland (going back to his roots as a marine biologist by working with the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group to establish whether the pod of bottlenose dolphins are a resident group, plus the dissection of a beached whale, tagging massive basking sharks, swimming with a mysterious lone dolphin and diving with curious congers) www.montyhalls.co.uk/tv-series/great-irish-escape.

Vanessa Knutson

Vanessa Knutson recently completed her master’s degree working on one of the most challenging and fascinating groups of nudibranchs, the genus Gymnodoris (who have the unusual habit of eating other nudibranchs while they’re still alive). Her master’s advisor was Terry Gosliner, the world’s foremost sea slug expert and one of the authors of the spectacular Indo Pacific Nudibranchs and Sea Slugs field guide.

During the last couple of years, Vanessa has done fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, Australia and the Philippines, including participating in two major multidisciplinary biodiversity expeditions.

Through her work, she has uncovered about 50 new species of Gymnodoris! She is currently working on naming and describing many of these unknown species and figuring out their diets, which consist of other sea slug species.

Her knowledge extends to other Indo-Pacific nudibranchs, having recently served as one of the three sea slug experts on a 6 week expedition to Papua New Guinea where they collected and identified over 300 species of slugs, including many new species!

Vanessa has been diving for 10 years for recreation and research and enjoys underwater photography. She’s also likely to be the only person baking NUDI COOKIES (as the photo on the left shows)!

Rod Klein

Rod Klein is a digital artist, photographer, and writer.

Earning a Master of Fine Arts Degree in photography and video from UCLA Rod also studied at the prestigious Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. Before becoming a PADI MSDT in 1992, Rod worked in the television industry as a graphic designer, and director.

Rod’s images have appeared in numerous publications and regularly in Scuba Diving Magazine, Sport Diver Magazine, EZ Dive, Asian Diver Magazine, Scuba Diver Australasia, Alert Diver, Action Asia, UWP Magazine, Fathoms Magazine and Tauchen Magazine. Rod conducts digital workshops at various resorts and liveaboards and is represented by Seapics.com, Waterframe.com, and Alamy.com. Rod has been a judge a several prestigious underwater photo contests.

MATTHEW MEIER

Educated in the USA and Australia, Andrea now lives permanently in Africa spearheading the conservation efforts of manta rays in Mozambique.

Andrea’s PhD research (conducted through the University of Queensland), on the population ecology of manta rays, was the first ever doctoral thesis to be completed on these enigmatic animals.

Her recent discovery of a new giant species of manta ray in 2008 was one of the largest new species to have been described by any scientist in the last 50 years.

She is known as the Queen of Mantas for her outstanding contribution towards a greater understanding of (and protection for) these gentle giants.

MANTA NEWS: In March 2013, at the CITES plenary session on listing sharks and mantas, oceanic white-tip sharks, 3 hammerhead species, porbeagle sharks, sawfish and MANTAS were all protected under CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention)! The Bahamas supported the listing, recognizing sharks are worth more alive than dead by citing over 80 million US dollars in tourism. Liberia supported the proposal and asked for CITES help in its waters, citing concerns over policing its 560km of coastal waters with only 1 coast guard! The Maldives delegate said; “in 2011 we banned shark and manta ray catches because they are worth more when conserved via alternative livelihoods like ecotourism”.

Regarding the CITES results, Dr Andrea Marshall said (via HER BLOG); “these iconic marine giants have made history again. This time not with the marvels of their biology, with their feats of endurance, or even with their unparalleled grace and beauty, this time they have made history as a trendsetter in a new age of ocean conservation.”

Did you know? “The different species of manta rays have very different distributions, however … the two Manta species are sympatric in a few locations around the globe including Mozambique, Hawaii, and Indonesia but at most of these locations, geographical separation, fine-scale habitat use, or seasonal movement patterns typically keep them from coming in contact with one another.”

Find out more about Dr Marshall, her work at the foundation and the megafauna she studies, at HTTP://MarineMegafauna.ORG Keep up to date with this specific trip at our FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE

ANDREA MARSHALL

Educated in the USA and Australia, Andrea now lives permanently in Africa spearheading the conservation efforts of manta rays in Mozambique.

Andrea’s PhD research (conducted through the University of Queensland), on the population ecology of manta rays, was the first ever doctoral thesis to be completed on these enigmatic animals.
Her recent discovery of a new giant species of manta ray in 2008 was one of the largest new species to have been described by any scientist in the last 50 years.

She is known as the Queen of Mantas for her outstanding contribution towards a greater understanding of (and protection for) these gentle giants.

MANTA NEWS: In March 2013, at the CITES plenary session on listing sharks and mantas, oceanic white-tip sharks, 3 hammerhead species, porbeagle sharks, sawfish and MANTAS were all protected under CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention)! The Bahamas supported the listing, recognizing sharks are worth more alive than dead by citing over 80 million US dollars in tourism. Liberia supported the proposal and asked for CITES help in its waters, citing concerns over policing its 560km of coastal waters with only 1 coast guard! The Maldives delegate said; “in 2011 we banned shark and manta ray catches because they are worth more when conserved via alternative livelihoods like ecotourism”.

Regarding the CITES results, Dr Andrea Marshall said (via HER BLOG); “these iconic marine giants have made history again. This time not with the marvels of their biology, with their feats of endurance, or even with their unparalleled grace and beauty, this time they have made history as a trendsetter in a new age of ocean conservation.”

Did you know? “The different species of manta rays have very different distributions, however … the two Manta species are sympatric in a few locations around the globe including Mozambique, Hawaii, and Indonesia but at most of these locations, geographical separation, fine-scale habitat use, or seasonal movement patterns typically keep them from coming in contact with one another.”

Find out more about Dr Marshall, her work at the foundation and the megafauna she studies, at HTTP://MarineMegafauna.ORG Keep up to date with this specific trip at our FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE