March 13, 2024 • 53 mins
34-year-old, Polish, Freediving Instructor, & Underwater Photographer, Wojciech Dopierala was Underwater Photographer of the year in 2021, & a finalist in 2023. Wojciech has appeared in the publications, The Times, Daily Mail, The Sun, Sunday Express, Underwater Photo Magazine, and Yahoo USA. His list of works include, a 2023 documentary about the conservation of Natural Reserve of Malpelo Island in Colombia, a Marlin expedition to Baja California, and a Revillagigedo diving expedition.
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Outdoors People is broadcast live Wednesdays at 6PM ET.
Outdoors People TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
Outdoors People Radio Show is broadcast on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
Outdoors People Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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(00:00):
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(00:31):
Welcome to outdoors people with me cwGetz and her Maya mar Zaki. Good
evening. It's Wednesday, March thirteenth, twenty twenty four. We've got a
(00:53):
beautiful, beautiful seventy degree fahrenheit dayhere in north central Illinois. That is
twenty one to grey Celsius for everyoneelse in the world. Let's see fresh.
Just got some notes here, freshoff of canu Kopia this weekend up
in Madison, Wisconsin, the world'slargest paddle sports expo, and what a
(01:14):
fun time at a really, reallyfun time. Saw a lot of old
friends there, and I don't meanthey're old, but a lot of friends
that we've known for some time atthe show. Really really great time,
a lot of cool stuff there.Maya made the trip and got to meet
a lot of people that she's onlyseen on screen during our show. So
(01:34):
I think that was very cool.I know she had a wonderful time.
But I will tell you Maya isnot gonna be with us this evening.
She's a little under the under theweather. I think she maybe got a
little something at the airport other thana snack, so maybe a bug.
We don't know, but I knowshe's probably listening tonight. So Hi,
(01:55):
Maya, and get will soon.Let's see what else do I want to
talk about about here? One,let's just ask you what the weather is
down there in West Palm Beach,Florida. There he is so down here
we are at a very very crispeighty one degrees, very crispy degrease.
(02:15):
I love it. Oh my god. You want to feel crisp coming off
to Chicago sometimes maybe about January February. It's very very crispy. Yeah,
no, thanks, Well I wonderedwith you, you people you know.
And here's the thing too, isMadi Elli. My my girlfriend Maria Elli.
She came up here from Brazil inDecember. Oh it was actually November,
(02:37):
but the early part of December.She left, and she loved it.
She loved the cold weather. Ijust blew me away. But I
think most people from tropical places,from very warm places, would just not
know what to do with themselves inthis kind of weather. It's just really
weird. Now I can take theheat, but other people who can take
the heat can't take the colds.It it's just weird how that works.
(02:58):
You get accustomed to things, andyeah, are you so are you going
to be surfing pretty soon? Withall the you know, you don't do
that? Guy lives in Florida doesn'tsurf. What's wrong with that picture?
Man like us? Right? Oh? Well, that there's that. There's
that. Yeah, you put alife jacket on. That's what we do.
(03:19):
People know how to swim, justyou know, put your PFD.
I don't hope for the best.I made that up. You shouldn't do
that. Kids. Let's see here, Well, let's get right into it.
Let's meet tonight's guests, shall weuh. Tonight's guest is thirty four
year old Polish free diving instructor inunderwater photographer Void, Chick Dope I Ralla,
(03:43):
who holds a master's degree in pantplant biotechnology. He was the Underwater
Photographer of the Year in twenty twentyone and also a finalist in twenty twenty
three, as well as having wonvarious other titles in numerous competitions. Has
appeared in publications such as The Times, Daily Mail, The Sun, Sunday
(04:05):
Express, Underwater Photo Magazine, andYahoo USA. Voicheck's list of works include
a twenty twenty three documentary about theconservation of natural reserve of malep Malpelo Malpelo
Island in Colombia and Marlin Expedition toBaja California and Sokorro I think I did
(04:29):
that correctly, Sokorro Diving Expedition,just to name a few. H m
(05:13):
hm h And with that, welcometo the show, avoid check. Hello,
(05:48):
Hello, Hello. Did I screwup those names on this sheet or
did that record? No? Actually, actually you did quite well. I
was like expected and way worse.So well, that's good. That's good.
That's very good. You don't thinkI'm capable, No, I'm just
joking. But hey, I thinkI did I roll my rs like that?
Like I was supposed to do orwhat did I do? Okay,
(06:09):
it was good, it was reallygood. Looks at your professional Yeah,
well we did it before the showwas just like a last minute cram jam
session. So hey, first,let me say, uh, but check
you are one bad ass dude.Uh swimming with sharks and stingrays and all
that business. My gosh, that'sthat's incredible. All friends, you know,
(06:30):
they're all your friends like mine andmine and yours and everyone who goes
and they wanted you know, Itotally understand that. But sometimes your friends
may turn on you and I andthat kind of scares me a little bit,
especially when you're underwater. You can'trun. That's only when we talk
about human friends, you know,you're talking about the animal friends. They
are usually like you can you canleave on Linden them. I think there's
(06:54):
a lot of truth to that.Well said, well said, well okay,
but check. Let me ask youhow did you first get onto it
into underwater photography. Let's say thatphotography was always my passion, like from
the as far as I can remember. It's something that was always like very
interesting for me. And photography issome a passion which follows me to all
(07:19):
the other passions of mine, andas I love nature more than everything,
I can and imagine the underwater natureand underwater world was something was always like
since the very very very beginning wasdriving me a lot and very interesting for
me. So I knew when Iwas already like doing photography like on lends,
(07:43):
animals, wildlife, landscapes, Iwas always like thinking, one day
I really would like to go anddo underwater photography. So yeah, so
it's like an evolution of a passion. What was your first camera? Was
it like this cheesy thing that youget at the dime store Like I we
always had like you know this likeconic coming all very simple, just point
(08:07):
and shoot film camera in my home. It just to you know, just
to point shoot and snab some memorieslike a Christmas with the family right wherever.
But I can't say that it's mine. Came right, and I always
my parents were like, you know, saving those twenty four frames, like
to make the most out of them. So my very first camera, which
(08:30):
I can say that it's mine andI could use and I'd be like try
to do something with it. Iremember, it was like digital Olympus super
Zuom camera. We bought it liketogether with my father, and it was
it was like a beginning of myphotography journey for sure. That's cool.
Then you had digital. See backwhen I was a kid one hundred years
(08:50):
ago, we had these cameras thatare actually film. And then you threw
the camera away too. I meanwhen when the film was I guess you
just sent that into the what doyou call developers or whatever they call those
processing, the photo processing, andthen you just give them the camera because
it was cheap and it was athrowaway thing. So yeah, it's a
little different. I don't know youever had a film camera before? Was
that way before your time? Imean yeah, I mean yeah, as
(09:11):
I told you, like the firstfirst ones they were like film cameras.
But actually I could start to learnphotography when we moved to digital. As
it's you know it it costs nomoney to just shoot, shoot, shoot,
shoot, shoot, and just deletestuff, which doesn't work, which
when you're beginning and you're learning,like most of the things doesn't work.
So on the film it was waytoo expensive. And then on the on
(09:33):
the digital came I could really likeyou know this, do this, try
and error and try and try andtry until you learn something and start to
do like real photos. Yeah.See you guys got it good because you
could just delete the lete. Wejust cost us money. Actually learn fast
or you go broke one of thetwo. Hey, you know what,
what what type of challenges do youhave to deal with when you're you're doing
(09:54):
photography and videoography underwater? I mean, obviously you know you need waterproof stuff,
but what do the kind of challengespresent themselves? Yeah, I mean
the first challenge is to protect yourgear. As we know that electronics in
water and especially salt water doesn't reallywork together. So first thing you have
to really be sure that your expensivegear is well protected. So you have
(10:18):
to have have sinc which you trust. You have to know how to use
it, how to close it,how to seal it, and so on.
But then as we humans are designedto work on a dry land,
so you have to learn how toswim that first, and then how to
hold your breath, then how todive down, then maybe how to scuba
dive or free dive. So likeevery single photo is a little challenge for
(10:41):
yourself also not only to your photographerskills, but also you're diving or free
diving skills and probably it's also that'swhy it's like even more interesting for me
because it's not only photography but alsoa sport. So you have to like
not only be a photographer, notonly have an eye good eye for things,
not only have to be creative,but also be able. You have
(11:03):
to be able to actually go downfor your photo if you ever get down
there and something screws up and you'relike, oh, go surface again,
fix my camera or whatever. Youheard that sure you have, right,
yeah, I mean you have tobe even better photographer because of that that
you maybe sometimes you don't have asmany chances or you don't have that much
time to take your shot, soyou have to be very familiar with your
(11:24):
gear. You have to really knowwhat you're doing. It has to be
like the camera is like a partof your body, you know, so
you don't have to really think whichwhich which dial, I have to move
now, which bottom to press.It's like it's like a part of your
body. You just go down andyou shoot and you don't have to think.
I mean, you have to think, but it's like it happens like
(11:45):
under the hood, you know,don't You don't have to be like present
with the camera setting and stuff,so you get your act together is what
it's bounced to. You get youract together before you go underwater. Right,
Yeah, definitely, What was yourmost unusual photo shoot that you've you've
ever done? I mean, likemost most unusual stuff will be always some
(12:09):
stuff which we do, like withfree divers with models when we have some
a bit more stage situation, becausethen we can like get ourselves recreative.
So we've done We've done stuff likeputting models with with address on the like
twenty meters deep shipwrecks, or wentfor searching for underwater landscapes which look like
(12:33):
Atlantis forty meters deep, going thereon single breadth, exploring caves when usually
people don't go without scuba gear.And then we were just going there just
free diving and looking for those forspecial shots, and like all the interactional
(12:54):
interactions with the wildlife always it's likevery very special as well. So that's
one of the things that that I'mnever bored of underwater photography because it has
so many different faces, so youcan really explore a lot and there's always
something new to try, you know, I can imagine really well, I
(13:16):
can't imagine. I'm just thinking,you take your breath and you get down
there, and I can just seeme getting the perfect shot and then running
out of breath. Gone, you'regonna go back up to it. You
ever heard that happen? Oh mygod, it happens to me every single
time I go down. Man.But but then you know, it's like
it's like, all right, youwait for this perfect with the with the
(13:37):
wildlife or the models. It's like, all right, you go down,
you get into place, you havethe frame. Then you wait until the
model gets the post here or she'sstarting doing well, and then you're already
like all right, I would liketo go up, but no, I
will wait like a couple more secondsuntil the shots shot is there. Then
you want to go up, andthen you see some different angle and then
(14:00):
all right, let's let's a bitmore. And then it's like, all
right, maybe he's start to gomaybe not. So there's always this,
you know, I can see megetting down there and getting in place and
then going, dang, I gottapee, gotta go back up. You
know, the underwater you can peewhatever you want. It's true. I
never thought about that. Well,maybe if you're in a suit, though
I don't know if that works,does it? You know, you know,
all the all the divers and freedivers, they we divide ourselves for
(14:24):
those who pee in their suit,and then there was who lie about it?
You know, I love it.So that's kind of a that's like
not a weird uncommon thing. Ilove it. See only only on this
show you get asked weird questions likethat. Off the wall. Hey,
one has got a question or twofor he's he's also a photographer and he'd
(14:45):
like to ask you a couple ofthings. One jump on here with us.
Hello One. Is he in thestudio? He was there, We
saw him for the show. He'sholding his breath. Maybe he's in the
bathroom later. Oh okay, okay, Well I'll just ask this and mari
Elli Maria Elli Efadia asks this question, Uh, have you ever seen plastic
(15:13):
pollution in any of the oceans thatyou've filmed in? And I know Marielli
is an environmentalist and which I thinkis very very awesome. She'd like to
know, you know, what,what kind of stuff plastic? Have you
seen anything? And what do yousee? I wish to say that no,
I don't see plastic but unfortunately,I see like every single day,
(15:35):
when you just see a bit,then you are all right, today's note
wasn't that bad? And then youare in the places like Red Sia,
Egypt, for example, which isfull full full of plastic backs. What
all kinds of things do you seedown there? Well? Like what kind
of plastic stuff are we talking about? Mostly mostly backs? Will you see
(15:56):
backs floating grounds or little pieces ofof of plastic of bags or whatever that
you can cannot identify anymore then CocaCola bottles like settled somewhere on the on
the bottom, like even in themost remote places I've been, like your
favorite Malpelo islands. You can youcan tell it again if you want,
(16:19):
which is like five hundred kilometers awayfrom Columbia, like in the middle of
the of the of the of theoption. Even there we found plastic like
floating around. So yeah, Imean, it's it's a big deal.
And it's not only some slogan whichyou here here and there around. It's
it's real, real, real thingall as I understand it. It's in
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the fish, fish eat it,I mean, because it's in the we
eat the fish, and it's somehowin there in there there the meat of
there, you know, and weeat that. And those are those like
famous micro microplastics. The ones wesaw that are like let's say, let's
call the microplant sticks. And thenthere are those like very very little pieces
(17:02):
that you can can't see with yourbare eye, and those ones. Yeah,
I mean it's like a cycle.That's fish eat it, then we
eat a fish. Then it's again, I think we were all much better
off when we were drinking coke outof glass bottles. What do you think,
you know? I mean, ittastes better, it looks better,
it's is way easier to recycle.Even if you don't recycle it. It's
(17:26):
that that, but the environment,so yeah, glass forever. Yeah.
The only thing was when you geta broken bottle on the beach, it
can of bad. But all thingsno roses without thorns, right, that's
right, that's absolutely true. Althoughyou know, here's the thing is the
bottle on the beach, a brokenbottle, you could you cut yourself,
you'll heal, But if you eatthe not plastic like and the other you'll
(17:48):
turn it. That's really kind ofnot good. You know, I don't
think you heal from that. Let'ssee here. Okay, what is your
favorite thing to shoot underwater? Wildlife? Definitely wildlife, and then I have
to choose what kind of wildlife?Whales? I mean, it was like,
yeah, it was like a dreamsince forever, Like wales was always
(18:12):
something which was like very very veryinteresting for me. And then when I
start diving, I mean like firstlike snorkeling, then free diving school,
but diving whatever, diving or whatever, just looking in the ocean, like
for meals was always a dream tosee whales and of course to dive with
wales, and of course as Ilike to do photos, to free dive
(18:34):
with whales and doing photos of whales. And I could accomplish this dream two
years ago and I saw my firstwhale. It was a humpback whale in
Baja California and Mexico. And thenever since, I just want to see
more whales. And what kind isyour favorite wale? Which one do you
love shooting? The most cool?So far? Hump packs for sure,
(18:59):
But just met sperm whale for thefor the first time now in December,
and it's very interesting. Specially,I will have a luck now in in
April. I will spend all allmonths in Mauritius, which is well known
for the for the residence population ofsperm whales, and I will have a
bit more time with them, somaybe I will like them even more than
(19:22):
the humpbacks. We'll see. That'scool. Not to be presumptuous, but
what kind of what kind of disastersthat you experienced during a shoot? Disasters?
Let's find some wood around. Sofar, I didn't have any disaster,
(19:42):
but really I would tell I mean, like no water in housings,
like more wood please, no accidents, like really, I'm so far.
I don't know. Maybe I'm luckyor maybe we are doing things right,
but yeah, there's so far,no nothing that I could tell that disaster
(20:02):
of course, like typical stuff likelens cap on the on the lens.
Yeah, it happened to me,like and I guess that for everyone who
shoots underwater, it will it willhappen. I mean, it happens to
all photographers. But as you don'thave your camera and housing, you can
just take let's cap out and keepshooting, right, nothing happens. But
(20:22):
if you are underwater and your lenscup is on the lens, and then
then it's a big deal. Sothen It's like, damn it, this
is like something that that you cantell disaster and the ayeah, it happens
to me like quite late actually lastyear for the first time jumping from the
boat with massive well shark, perfectvisibility and then those like the screen was
(20:45):
very dark. I didn't understand why. And then I turned the camera around
and the lens camp, the lenscap was there smiling to me. It's
like, yeah, I think thatfalls under What type of challenges do you
have to deal with when you cando an underwash? That would be definitely
qualify as one of those, wouldn'tyou agree? Yeah? And I don't
(21:06):
know. I mean, it doeshappen, but it's easy here, but
get underwater, everything changes. Yeah, Hey, what have you? What
have you? What have you notyet had the opportunity to shoot? And
you're like, man, I can'twait for this opportunity that I can shoot
this What would that be? Canyou please repeat? Because I think I
had like a little bit broken connection. I didn't. Oh, yeah,
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you're your question, what have younot had the opportunity to shoot yet that
you'd really have been dying to shoot? I was telling you that the whales
are my favorites. So there's stillsome species of whales that I would really
like to see, like blue whale, for example, like the biggest animal
that ever lived on the planet.So really I would really wish to free
(21:52):
life with them and to shoot them. There are some like when when I
people ask me what I like toshoot, and I always tell whales,
but then there are sharks somewhere behindmy head saying hey what about us?
And yeah, there are some likethere's one species of shark it's treasure shark,
which is very quite unique species whichI would really like to to see
(22:15):
and shoot as well. And thelist is like never ending, you know.
Always when I'm like tick one thefirst thing, what happens, I
want to see it again, Andthen there's always some new and new species
that that that they're they're on alist. So yeah, but if I
have to like choose one right now, blue whale for sure. Really about
killer whales, killer whales, I'vesaw them only once and I wish to
(22:37):
see them, and I hope thatI will see them many more time.
Again, I had to wait quitelong to see them. I was like
in I work in bah California quitea lot in Mexico and it's quite I
can't say easy to see them,but it's a good place to have a
luck to see them. And finallyI could, I could, I could
accomplish this dream in the same lastyear and it was like amazing experience,
(23:03):
one of the one of the bestexperience I had underwater for sure. Yeah,
you know, you're thirty four yearsold, and I know, at
least me when I was thirty four, I was bulletproof. But do you
ever is there ever time you getyou get a little scared, you know,
different fish whatever, I mean,you ever get scared. I'm what
I'm scared about is more about losingflights, messing up dates, time zone
(23:30):
changes, Oh my god, yeahyeah, or yeah nothing water no,
no, no, under the waternot really, it's like my happy place.
It's always that everything works there,even if I don't see anything.
I'm just have fun because I'm inwater now. So you get too old
and you go inside of a shipand then you like get stuck or something
(23:51):
like that and you're like, ohno, I'm stuck. I kick it
out of here. No no,no, no, no. It's like
always, I mean when we tryto do fixed well, you know,
always when you get into the place, you always check it before, like
first like go down, take alook, all right, I have to
go in here. Then I goout there, or I have to go
like turn around and go out thesame place. And then really really like
(24:15):
to squeeze myself in places underwater,And it's always and we always want to
find even like like you know,smaller and smaller to swim through. But
even even though I mean there wouldbe always like small places to see and
more gaps to squin cuize in.So we always yea, we always sure
(24:38):
that we are squeezing in and wecan squeeze out also any close calls though
you ever get in here and godamn, I'm not going to do this
again, you know, we're like, okay, man, I didn't get
out of there. No, no, we'll give it time, give it
time, you're bold. I'm sureyou'll get there one of these days.
(24:59):
Hey, you know. And that'sthe thing when it's a beautiful thing when
you're in your thirties and twenties andyou know, like, hey, I'm
going to try that's the adventure.I mean, that is the adventure.
You know, just hopefully make itout. Yeah, and I really like,
I feel so glad about this thatI can like live an adventure and
I'm it's I'm doing things that sometimesI really I have to stop think,
(25:22):
I don't know me, Am Ireally here? Am I really doing here?
Or we are really going there tosee that? Really it's like sometimes
that I really have to stop andthink, and I'm sometimes I can't believe.
That's kind OF's surreal. Yeah,yeah, and that is a pretty
cool feeling, I'm sure. Sowhat's the most interesting thing that you've discovered
(25:42):
when you were shooting a shipwreck?On the shipwrecks, you know, it's
like always a mystery because it's awreck, so it's always hiding this mystery.
That's why it's there, how it'ssunk. You have to find them.
Some of them are easy to find, some of them you have to
really like search for it free.Well, I remember that one time in
(26:03):
Anzarotte, we were looking for onevery really particular one. We knew that
it's there, it's been like thepeople were diving there, but we like
ask like three or four different divecenters and people who seem to know where
it is, and it's like alwaysthere saying yahya is there? No,
no, no, it's there andyeah now it's right there, so we
(26:25):
like it. Yeah, it took. It took us like three days of
exploring, and when we were thatit will not appear, we were like,
okay, this is the last timewe will go. We'll try and
if we don't find it, justlet's let's let's have it again. Yeah.
Yeah, and then we were likeit was like really, I went
all right, uh, I'll justgo down and see because it was like
(26:48):
quite quite deep one like lying onforty meters, so if they get visibility
and we had very good visipity thatday, we should see like more or
less that it's there's something. ButI was like, all right, I'll
just go down and see what's what'sthere because I was like quite worried of
swimming around for hours. And thenI was like I went down like maybe
(27:08):
yeah, that went down to betwenty meters and I was like going forwards
a bit and then it's just boom, you know, just appeared in front.
And I was like, no way, really, it's like feeling that
you think that it will never happenand it just boom. It's just that's
nice. Are you doing scuba gearwhen you're going on for these shipwrecks?
Are you free diving? Always?When I I mean I do both,
(27:32):
but always when I can, andit's when it's it's possible. I prefer
free diving way more than scuba.Really. There are some particular there are
some particular jobs which are easier todo scuba diving, But most of the
stuff, and most what work yousee me doing, it's always free diving.
Why is that? Why do youprefer that? Free diving for me
was always way more natural the wayof exploring underwater world. It's always feels
(27:56):
easier for me to just you know, put like minimal gear, just go
down and enjoy water in this free, free way. Scuba was always like
too much stuff you have to puton the top. You have to like
this, yeah, I mean havethis, have this tank on the on
(28:17):
on your back. Then you ifyou don't swim, you just you know,
move around. In free diving,you are really really free. And
then for to do some jobs,it's way easier, I mean, especially
if you if you work with people, I mean even talking sometimes you don't
understand each other. So underwater whenyou have to oh sure and free diving,
(28:41):
we go down, we should thenwe go up. We can talk
to each other. We can sayall right, man, maybe try to
sit there or look there, swimlike this this direction or that direction,
or go there, do that.Yeah, and it's and we can we
can. We can finish the jobway easier there. And then just scuba
diving, we are not limited tothe to the time which which you know,
(29:03):
the tanks get empty on like halfan hour, forty minutes, one
hour or whatever, and then youhave to go and switch for another.
For in free diving, we canspend like hours and just go up and
down how many times we want.So, yeah, definitely, can I
always all do free diving? Puttingnext all that stuff on takes time too,
I'm sure you know, and eventaking it off, right, So
(29:26):
what which? Okay, so youknow here, what's the deepest I mean?
And I say this because not everyshipwreck is forty meters? Right,
Some of them are really really deep, Like what's the deepest that you've ever
gone done an underwater shoot? Thedeepest photoshoots so far will be yeah,
(29:48):
forty meters, which is actually thelimit of what my housing which I'm using
now allows me we have already wehave projects to shoot deeper than that,
but so far we haven't done itbecause of the housing and it's like pretty
expensive piece of gear which you cannotjust switch to a new one whatever you
want. So yeah, so farlike forty meters forty five. Even like
(30:11):
you know, we have like thedeepest pool in Europe, it's in Poland,
and we did, like we shooton the very bottom, which is
forty five. And here in Tenarifa, we did a shooting in one very
particular place which is one of thelike most iconic dive spots here in Tenerifa.
It's like exact forty meters deep.It's like basaltic columns, which it
(30:34):
looks like Atlantis. It's like itlooks like made by human because the the
the columns are like perfect hexagonal shape, totally straight. You we usually we
don't see straight lines in nature,and there you can find perfect straight line
columns one and next to another.And it was like only a handful of
(30:59):
times it was done in free diving, and was never shoot in free diving,
and and we did with my withmy colleagues, we did it once
two times already, and we're alreadyplanning to go come back again. You
know, I can imagine when youcome home from work, it's not like
you're stressed out and all that kindof stuff. It's like, you really
had a very cool day and youdid a lot of cool stuff. You
saw a lot of cool things.And I'm sure you know. I wonder
(31:22):
people that do kind of things likeyou do. I wonder if like sometimes
that keeps you up at night thinkingabout the things that you've done, the
places you've been, things you've seen. Is that true? You know?
Usually what I'm thinking is where togo next? Not too much reflection,
but more looking at looking ahead.What keep what keeps me busy usually is
where to go next? Or what'swhat's for? What's what's for Tomorrow's the
(31:47):
plan for tomorrow was what's the what'snext? Trip? So of course,
yeah, I usually when I'm editingphotos on videos, then I'm coming back
again to the moment when I wasshooting, and maybe I have like having
the results in front of me.I have this moment of thinking, all
right, I remember when we wereplanning the play to go there and shoot,
(32:10):
when we were have the idea forthe photos, and now I have
a photo in front of me.So yeah, then there's a moment when
I when I go back in time. But usually if if I'm sitting doing
nothing, which doesn't happen really often, then I'm mostly thinking, all right,
what's what's next. That's pretty cool. But I think you're living the
dream. I think I think you'reliving the dream at least at least at
(32:32):
least mind dream. Yes, forsure, Yeah, absolutely absolutely. All
right, Well, listen, we'vegot some really cool photos that you sent
to us, and I believe oneshould have those, and maybe we can
cut those up, take a lookat them, and you can tell us
a little bit about each one ofthem. Here we go, all right,
you can here you can see abeautiful smile of the tiger shark.
(32:53):
Tiger sharks is one of the biggestspeech shifts of sharks. Very friendly.
You know how to approach them.I'm usually quite scared and aware of humans,
so they don't really interact with humans. But if you do things right,
they feel safe enough and they canclose like on this photo for example.
(33:14):
I've heard there's a trick to that. I mean, there's a way
to approach them, and they're notscared, they're not in attack mode or
all that that's true though, yeah, it is. It is, so
you always have to like keep aneye contact with them. You can hear
see the same tiger shark and asyou can see, they are very very
nice and friendly. So if youapproach them correctly, there's no no,
(33:37):
no problem to to die for freelife with them or the best thing is
just always be sure that there issomewhere closer to the shark than you are
and then you are safe. Youknow, they look so cool, I
mean that that's just been a beautifulfish. Yeah. Here we have we
have a manta rayce in in Malnives. There's one particular bay in Maltives which
(34:00):
is protected by UNESCO, which iswell known of the accumulation of of mantas.
They usually they I mean they usuallyare together, but not in so
huge numbers. And in this smallbay which is like not bigger than soccer
playground, and they have you canhave more than two hundreds of them together.
(34:20):
Wow, So it's it gets reallycrazy. I had like to be
there like three four times already.You have to even even though if it's
known that they are there and theycan like gather together, it's not not
that easy to see, like somany of them together at once, and
a few times I had. Iwas really lucky to witness that. No,
obviously they're not afraid of you.I mean no, not at all.
(34:44):
They are just doing their thing.They are feeding, they're feeding on
plankt on, you know, thesmallest features living out there in the in
the suspended in the in the water. So they are doing their thing,
just flying around eating and as longas you are not on the way,
that they don't care at all.And if you're on the way, they
just dodg you. And that's okay. That's it. That means any danger
level, what's the danger level?The no? Nothing, zero. I
(35:07):
mean, if you know how toswim, there's no danger. Yeah,
bigf. There's a big F.I don't love it. That's beautiful.
All right. Here you can seea friend of mine, Victor also excellent
photographer, doing what he loves andwhat I love, free diving in the
(35:27):
caves. It's in Minorca, Spain, in Balaric Islands, which is very
famous. I don't know now it'snot famous of that, but it's among
the divers. It's famous because ofthe caves. It's the entire islands is
like a Swiss cheese and this isone of our favorite ones. You have
to like go down maybe eight ninemeters, then swim fifteen inside of the
(35:52):
cave. And inside the cave thereis a huge like bubble of air which
you can see on the top ofthis photo, so you can actually be
there. You can be there likebreathing and free diving inside of the inside
of the cave. How does that, I mean, is that air just
been there or does it get resuppliedsomehow? Mom? It has like very
small connections outside, like very verylike tiny holes which reached the surface.
(36:16):
And then yeah, and it's reallyreally big like inside you can we could
beat like like a size of thesmall house, Like I mean the airspace
which is on the top you knowthat pic. That water looks super clear
and that blue that's not a filterthat you put on there. That's really
well, yeah, exactly like Monorcais very like entire Mediterranean has this very
(36:39):
nice blue collar and usually especially inthe summer when the sea is calm,
the visibility is great, so likeit's all together makes a perfect place for
underwater shootings. That's beautiful. Andthen people put plastic and pollute that,
you know, Yeah, exactly.Yeah, here's exactly the same spot.
(36:59):
Just we with Victor playing and inventingstuff. So here he's he's a torch,
pointing the torch away from him,creating this nice, nice effect exactly
the same the same place that inthe in the photo before. It's amazing
that you have that much light onthe outside. Yeah, it's like that
summer summer in Spain, a lotof sun. So yeah, enjoying that
(37:22):
even underwater. Beautiful, just beautifulagain, Manta again, mantas in here
you can you can see that,you can, you can swim between between
of them and there's no problem atall. They are just doing their thing.
They don't really they're not bothered,they don't care. So you can
really enjoy the time and this theshow of the of the nature. They
(37:45):
look like little airplanes, don't they. They are They look like spacecraft like
from Star Trek or Star Wars orsomething exactly really like, and they really
look like flying, you know,they have those wings and they are like
they be. You can you canyou can see here like this always.
I really like to put this humansilhouette somewhere so you can see the sides
(38:07):
of the so you can see thesize of the animal or on the landscape.
So here you can perfectly see howbig they are. They have like
three four meters wingspan, so big, guys, Holy smokes, there we
go. Oh, here we go. We were talking about shipwrecks. This
is one of my favorites. Isin Tnadifa, one of the places,
(38:29):
like we're at first we're doing likereal free diving, and it was one
of the first places I visited.And here we are together with Miguel Losano.
One of the deepest month of Earth. He dived to like one hundred
and twenty five five believe, Soyeah, he knows what he's doing.
So yeah, he's enjoying. Here, nice photoshoot what we did. And
(38:51):
actually behind him you can see ascuba diver, so you can see that
the usually people scuba dive. Therewe are on the thirty meters here on
this photo. Oh, this isonly thirty meters here only. Yeah,
so let me Okay, this isa really morbid question, but I have
to ask because that's just who Iam. Do you ever find anything creepy
on those ships, like you know, little skeletons or anything like that,
(39:14):
you know, No, maybe youcan, yeah, you can find a
face of moor a eel like creepingfrom some from some hole or something.
But then they are you know,they have this like no humans black but
human. You know. Usually allthose places are quite well known, like
many people like dive there like daily. So and this for example, this
(39:36):
shipwreck in particular was sunk on thepurpose to create like artificial reef, so
all the all the skeletons were wellremoved before they sunk it. But yeah,
for example, there are some synotisin in Mexico, Mexico with where
you can actually find like schools andskeletons, reason and not as were yees.
Not as were like for the forthe natives, for Mayans, they
(39:59):
were like sacred place places, andfor some of them they were like throwing.
I believe that dead people already asto like to yeah, like to
you know, some kind of cemetery, and and now like as the places
were discovered as a very nice cavediving places, and you can you can
(40:22):
find those skeletons there. But inmore places where I've been so far,
they are too well known to tofind those kinds of things. Interesting.
Wow, Wow, those are Thoseare mobilar arrays, the smaller cousins of
mantas which we've seen on the otherother photos. This is in Baja California,
(40:43):
the place where it's known of uhlike all kind of underwater wildlife.
Is there. One of my favoriteplaces to to dive for sure. And
it's insane to see so many ofthose animals together and they tend to create
a groups of thousands sometimes. Yeah. So what same place, the same
(41:07):
place, a little bit more faraway offshore. Marlin's hunting the sardines here
and there is this famous event ofsardin run, the most famous sardine run
we know. It's like South SouthAfrica that the sardians they create schools so
big that they can be seen fromthe moon and from the outer space.
(41:31):
The sardine one run in Mexico isway smaller, but still it's a really
nice show. Maybe the sardians arenot the most interesting animals in the world,
but everything goes after the saldlines reallyis. So for example, here
Marlin's hunting them, hunting them down. It's really beautiful show that Marlin itself.
(41:51):
It's amazing fish as you can see, like with the with this with
the sail on the top of thespike, with the colors, the stripes.
It's amazing to see them hunting sofast, so precise. Interesting,
here's the question. I see thateverything seems like it's very well lit.
How do you handle lighting on thewater. Are you just shooting at a
(42:13):
higher iesol? I mean yeah,I mean high ISO and mother sensors helped
a lot. Basically, many peopleuse strokes for other water photography, which
is the way to provide some morelight as I usually see, like I
like the wide angle and stuff whichcannot be lit or will be very difficult
(42:35):
to lead with the strokes. Iuse only natural light, so you have
to be very careful when you areexposing, and then there is a lot
to do also in post processing regardingthe light and the colors. Also,
because water works as a filter,so deeper you dive more, red light
is filtered out, so you alwayshave to do a little bit of post
(42:59):
production. Interesting, so the redlight is deep. Yeah, that's why
that's why everything is blue underwater,you know, because the the blue light
which is it's which stays and thenthe red, yellow, green are are
fading away. Interesting, here wecan see a whale shark, the biggest
fish that lives currently in on ouron the in our world, they can
(43:24):
grow up to like eighteen meters.This is in Maldives. So this one
was yeah, this one was waysThis one was ways smaller and it was
maybe maybe ten meters, but it'sstill impressive to see a fish that that
size and they eat plankton. Andthis is This is also the one of
the type of photography which I dojust explore places. This is in the
(43:50):
Red Sea in that hub. Nowthat hab is very famous because one the
next Netflix movie which was done aboutdone about free diving there in that hub.
The deep breath is cold. Andthis is right next to the place.
What I write like about the redseeds not only the coral and so
much marine life, small life whichlives on the coral lives, but also
(44:15):
the rock formations, a lot ofcaves, cracks and stuff. This is
the crack which starts from like asurface and it goes all the way to
like fifteen meters deep. Here weare maybe like fifteen meter like on the
halfway. You know, it's soclear it almost doesn't look like it's underwater
right the ground here, Yeah,yeah, it's always the deal of looking
(44:37):
for a day with good visibility.Like we are always talking about visibility.
How always when you when you goto the water and see people going outside,
you always ask, hey, howis the visibility? Or when you
know that your your body was diving, it was like, hey man,
how is the visibility? Do youthink that to worrow would be good?
So it's all about visibility. Yeah, in order to get the best line
(45:00):
underwater, what would you say thebest time of the day is to go
m same rules as outside always likethis golden hour in the morning, the
evening we give you like the mostinteresting and dramatic light maybe the golden hour
and the water is a bit beforethen it's outside the water. But then
(45:22):
when you in the water, wealways have we never have enough lights.
So when the when we're talking aboutthis shooting outside, we always say that
shooting at twelve o'clock one two islike a big no, then underwater is
not that big deal. So becauseyou need more light, right exactly,
(45:44):
Yeah, here we can see likeone of my kind like favorite kind of
photos underwater is these split shots whichyou can when you can show underwater world
and outside on the same shot.It's quite yeah, quite difficult to because
you need to have the surface ofthe water right in the middle of the
of the dome. So quite challengingto shoot, but very very like this,
(46:10):
this type of shot, I'm guessingyou can only do it during Golden
hour because of the dynamic range correcthmm. For example, I hear it
was like on the almost in theevening that you can see this, uh,
this warm light as you as youwill said, it's it's maybe it's
not golden hour, but it's alreadygoing towards the evening. And also because
(46:32):
here in this particular cave, thelight goes in only like when the sun
is quite low already. If not, it's like the ceiling, the ceiling
of the of the cave would bevery very dark. It's very cool.
This is awesome. This is justawesome. It looks like a beehive,
doesn't it. Like, yeah,it's a doughnut of sardines, you know,
(46:57):
the school of fish, the schoolof fish. Yeah, those are
sardines. When they they only waitfor them to defend themselves. It's to
get together create like a ball.And then the chances that a particular saldin
will survive are way bigger if thenthan when they are separated. So when
(47:20):
they are chased, they are alwaysgetting god together and they move like a
huge, one big organism, andthey are very well organized together. They
really act, they really act asone big thing, like something that has
not like it's not made of onethousands of little brains. It looks like
one animal which is actually moving.And then yeah, here on this photo
(47:45):
you could see marlins in particular,or they do. They try, They
put them even more together, andthen they move them up towards the surface,
so they cannot run away at leastin this dimension they cannot run away
even more more so they can handthem easier. You know, people that
are just listening to these episodes,you really need to watch a certain ones.
(48:07):
This for sure. It's just thisphoto is just amazing. That huge
school of sardines. I mean,this is phenomenal. There's a very cool
picture, very clear into that water. Look at that. Yeah, that's
what I told you about. That'swhat I told you about Menorca and what
your friend asked about. The timing. This is like evening light, so
(48:30):
you can see how nice and warmlight we can get underwater. So it's
the same exact rule that we useon the top side photography. And what
I like to do sometimes is createdthis. It's of course it's staged.
No one does like walking somewhere andjust petting the plants and the water.
(48:52):
But what I like to show thatunderwater world it's not that far from us,
so it's you. We can staythere, we can be there,
we can you know, interact withit. So when you can see a
human just underwater, just with hishair's wetsuit, just a mask, it
(49:13):
looks like way more accessible than whenyou see a scuba diver with all the
gear who looks like an astronaut.So these kind of photos always we have
some of those in our mind andwe really enjoy these kind of shootings.
Wow yeah, beautiful. Ah.And here it's a photo I told you
forty meters deep, perfect straight linesof basaltic rock here in Tenarifa. So
(49:39):
this is one of the like thedeepest and most challenging shootings we've ever done.
When you look at the top ofthose little mountains, hills or how
to call it, this is twentymeters deep and when the guy is standing,
When the guy is standing, it'salready forty meters. So it's like
a lot of preparation. You needskill people with you not only to pose
(50:06):
on a photo, but also tolike the people who wait on us for
us on the surface to do,to do safety for us to be sure
that we are safe and we canreach the surface. So these kind of
shootings are really complex to organize andto and to to prepare to and to
and to do. Just amazing,just amazing. Yeah, this is inside
(50:30):
of the Mather earth and underwater.So this is an underwater cave which it's
so big that it penetrates like kilometersinside of the Menorca and on some parts
it's like half of it is dryand it creates those amazing stalactites stalagmnes just
really looks like different planets. Yeahmm hmm. And yeah here what I
(50:57):
what I told you before, Likeinteraction with the life. It's always the
most magic moments when you can spotan animal, when you can swim with
it, when you can see thatanimal also is curious about you, and
it's not like swimming away or runningaway, but it stays there, is
it looks at you. Here thesame sea lions they are or playful or
(51:21):
they just don't want you to bethere. And this this is the case,
this is the match of alpha.So he has his the group of
his of his of his females aroundhim. He just doesn't want me to
be there. So what they dois just they just rush, just they
rush to you and then they opentheir mouth to show how big, how
(51:45):
big mouth they have. So thereis like a message for you, all
right, go away here. Ihave bigger tooth than you have. All
right, I think this was thelast photo we were part. There we
go, We're back on the We'reback on the show. Well, but
(52:07):
check where can where can people findyou online? So far I'm on Instagram.
I think you can, guys,you can put it somewhere somewhere around
so people so people can can clickand look for my Instagram. This is
the place where where I can whereI when I so far, where I
post my work is I find itthe most easy to to deliver my work
(52:30):
to to the people. There aresome like website is on the way and
stuff, so maybe in the future, but so far, the Instagram,
like nowadays, I think it exists. Yeah, that's definitely the place when
you can you can share and youcan what's important. What I like about
this platform that everyone can comment,everyone can write you, so it's not
only you that you show your work, but you can get in touch with
(52:52):
the pop Yeah. Absolutely, bycheck Listen. I want to thank you
so much for being our guest hereon Outdoors People pleasure here having you in
wonderful work that you do. Really, kudos to you, sir. It's
my pleasure. Thank you very muchfor having me here. It was really
nice to talk to you guys,and I hope that you enjoyed it and
that your audience enjoyed it as well. Yeah, well, thank you,
(53:14):
I know I certainly did. Well. Be sure to tune in for next
week's episode, free fallse Cinematography withour guest Joe Jennings. Until then,
enjoy your evening and we'll see younext week
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(00:31):
Welcome to outdoors people with me cwGetz and her Maya mar Zaki. Good
evening. It's Wednesday, March thirteenth, twenty twenty four. We've got a
(00:53):
beautiful, beautiful seventy degree fahrenheit dayhere in north central Illinois. That is
twenty one to grey Celsius for everyoneelse in the world. Let's see fresh.
Just got some notes here, freshoff of canu Kopia this weekend up
in Madison, Wisconsin, the world'slargest paddle sports expo, and what a
(01:14):
fun time at a really, reallyfun time. Saw a lot of old
friends there, and I don't meanthey're old, but a lot of friends
that we've known for some time atthe show. Really really great time,
a lot of cool stuff there.Maya made the trip and got to meet
a lot of people that she's onlyseen on screen during our show. So
(01:34):
I think that was very cool.I know she had a wonderful time.
But I will tell you Maya isnot gonna be with us this evening.
She's a little under the under theweather. I think she maybe got a
little something at the airport other thana snack, so maybe a bug.
We don't know, but I knowshe's probably listening tonight. So Hi,
(01:55):
Maya, and get will soon.Let's see what else do I want to
talk about about here? One,let's just ask you what the weather is
down there in West Palm Beach,Florida. There he is so down here
we are at a very very crispeighty one degrees, very crispy degrease.
(02:15):
I love it. Oh my god. You want to feel crisp coming off
to Chicago sometimes maybe about January February. It's very very crispy. Yeah,
no, thanks, Well I wonderedwith you, you people you know.
And here's the thing too, isMadi Elli. My my girlfriend Maria Elli.
She came up here from Brazil inDecember. Oh it was actually November,
(02:37):
but the early part of December.She left, and she loved it.
She loved the cold weather. Ijust blew me away. But I
think most people from tropical places,from very warm places, would just not
know what to do with themselves inthis kind of weather. It's just really
weird. Now I can take theheat, but other people who can take
the heat can't take the colds.It it's just weird how that works.
(02:58):
You get accustomed to things, andyeah, are you so are you going
to be surfing pretty soon? Withall the you know, you don't do
that? Guy lives in Florida doesn'tsurf. What's wrong with that picture?
Man like us? Right? Oh? Well, that there's that. There's
that. Yeah, you put alife jacket on. That's what we do.
(03:19):
People know how to swim, justyou know, put your PFD.
I don't hope for the best.I made that up. You shouldn't do
that. Kids. Let's see here, Well, let's get right into it.
Let's meet tonight's guests, shall weuh. Tonight's guest is thirty four
year old Polish free diving instructor inunderwater photographer Void, Chick Dope I Ralla,
(03:43):
who holds a master's degree in pantplant biotechnology. He was the Underwater
Photographer of the Year in twenty twentyone and also a finalist in twenty twenty
three, as well as having wonvarious other titles in numerous competitions. Has
appeared in publications such as The Times, Daily Mail, The Sun, Sunday
(04:05):
Express, Underwater Photo Magazine, andYahoo USA. Voicheck's list of works include
a twenty twenty three documentary about theconservation of natural reserve of malep Malpelo Malpelo
Island in Colombia and Marlin Expedition toBaja California and Sokorro I think I did
(04:29):
that correctly, Sokorro Diving Expedition,just to name a few. H m
(05:13):
hm h And with that, welcometo the show, avoid check. Hello,
(05:48):
Hello, Hello. Did I screwup those names on this sheet or
did that record? No? Actually, actually you did quite well. I
was like expected and way worse.So well, that's good. That's good.
That's very good. You don't thinkI'm capable, No, I'm just
joking. But hey, I thinkI did I roll my rs like that?
Like I was supposed to do orwhat did I do? Okay,
(06:09):
it was good, it was reallygood. Looks at your professional Yeah,
well we did it before the showwas just like a last minute cram jam
session. So hey, first,let me say, uh, but check
you are one bad ass dude.Uh swimming with sharks and stingrays and all
that business. My gosh, that'sthat's incredible. All friends, you know,
(06:30):
they're all your friends like mine andmine and yours and everyone who goes
and they wanted you know, Itotally understand that. But sometimes your friends
may turn on you and I andthat kind of scares me a little bit,
especially when you're underwater. You can'trun. That's only when we talk
about human friends, you know,you're talking about the animal friends. They
are usually like you can you canleave on Linden them. I think there's
(06:54):
a lot of truth to that.Well said, well said, well okay,
but check. Let me ask youhow did you first get onto it
into underwater photography. Let's say thatphotography was always my passion, like from
the as far as I can remember. It's something that was always like very
interesting for me. And photography issome a passion which follows me to all
(07:19):
the other passions of mine, andas I love nature more than everything,
I can and imagine the underwater natureand underwater world was something was always like
since the very very very beginning wasdriving me a lot and very interesting for
me. So I knew when Iwas already like doing photography like on lends,
(07:43):
animals, wildlife, landscapes, Iwas always like thinking, one day
I really would like to go anddo underwater photography. So yeah, so
it's like an evolution of a passion. What was your first camera? Was
it like this cheesy thing that youget at the dime store Like I we
always had like you know this likeconic coming all very simple, just point
(08:07):
and shoot film camera in my home. It just to you know, just
to point shoot and snab some memorieslike a Christmas with the family right wherever.
But I can't say that it's mine. Came right, and I always
my parents were like, you know, saving those twenty four frames, like
to make the most out of them. So my very first camera, which
(08:30):
I can say that it's mine andI could use and I'd be like try
to do something with it. Iremember, it was like digital Olympus super
Zuom camera. We bought it liketogether with my father, and it was
it was like a beginning of myphotography journey for sure. That's cool.
Then you had digital. See backwhen I was a kid one hundred years
(08:50):
ago, we had these cameras thatare actually film. And then you threw
the camera away too. I meanwhen when the film was I guess you
just sent that into the what doyou call developers or whatever they call those
processing, the photo processing, andthen you just give them the camera because
it was cheap and it was athrowaway thing. So yeah, it's a
little different. I don't know youever had a film camera before? Was
that way before your time? Imean yeah, I mean yeah, as
(09:11):
I told you, like the firstfirst ones they were like film cameras.
But actually I could start to learnphotography when we moved to digital. As
it's you know it it costs nomoney to just shoot, shoot, shoot,
shoot, shoot, and just deletestuff, which doesn't work, which
when you're beginning and you're learning,like most of the things doesn't work.
So on the film it was waytoo expensive. And then on the on
(09:33):
the digital came I could really likeyou know this, do this, try
and error and try and try andtry until you learn something and start to
do like real photos. Yeah.See you guys got it good because you
could just delete the lete. Wejust cost us money. Actually learn fast
or you go broke one of thetwo. Hey, you know what,
what what type of challenges do youhave to deal with when you're you're doing
(09:54):
photography and videoography underwater? I mean, obviously you know you need waterproof stuff,
but what do the kind of challengespresent themselves? Yeah, I mean
the first challenge is to protect yourgear. As we know that electronics in
water and especially salt water doesn't reallywork together. So first thing you have
to really be sure that your expensivegear is well protected. So you have
(10:18):
to have have sinc which you trust. You have to know how to use
it, how to close it,how to seal it, and so on.
But then as we humans are designedto work on a dry land,
so you have to learn how toswim that first, and then how to
hold your breath, then how todive down, then maybe how to scuba
dive or free dive. So likeevery single photo is a little challenge for
(10:41):
yourself also not only to your photographerskills, but also you're diving or free
diving skills and probably it's also that'swhy it's like even more interesting for me
because it's not only photography but alsoa sport. So you have to like
not only be a photographer, notonly have an eye good eye for things,
not only have to be creative,but also be able. You have
(11:03):
to be able to actually go downfor your photo if you ever get down
there and something screws up and you'relike, oh, go surface again,
fix my camera or whatever. Youheard that sure you have, right,
yeah, I mean you have tobe even better photographer because of that that
you maybe sometimes you don't have asmany chances or you don't have that much
time to take your shot, soyou have to be very familiar with your
(11:24):
gear. You have to really knowwhat you're doing. It has to be
like the camera is like a partof your body, you know, so
you don't have to really think whichwhich which dial, I have to move
now, which bottom to press.It's like it's like a part of your
body. You just go down andyou shoot and you don't have to think.
I mean, you have to think, but it's like it happens like
(11:45):
under the hood, you know,don't You don't have to be like present
with the camera setting and stuff,so you get your act together is what
it's bounced to. You get youract together before you go underwater. Right,
Yeah, definitely, What was yourmost unusual photo shoot that you've you've
ever done? I mean, likemost most unusual stuff will be always some
(12:09):
stuff which we do, like withfree divers with models when we have some
a bit more stage situation, becausethen we can like get ourselves recreative.
So we've done We've done stuff likeputting models with with address on the like
twenty meters deep shipwrecks, or wentfor searching for underwater landscapes which look like
(12:33):
Atlantis forty meters deep, going thereon single breadth, exploring caves when usually
people don't go without scuba gear.And then we were just going there just
free diving and looking for those forspecial shots, and like all the interactional
(12:54):
interactions with the wildlife always it's likevery very special as well. So that's
one of the things that that I'mnever bored of underwater photography because it has
so many different faces, so youcan really explore a lot and there's always
something new to try, you know, I can imagine really well, I
(13:16):
can't imagine. I'm just thinking,you take your breath and you get down
there, and I can just seeme getting the perfect shot and then running
out of breath. Gone, you'regonna go back up to it. You
ever heard that happen? Oh mygod, it happens to me every single
time I go down. Man.But but then you know, it's like
it's like, all right, youwait for this perfect with the with the
(13:37):
wildlife or the models. It's like, all right, you go down,
you get into place, you havethe frame. Then you wait until the
model gets the post here or she'sstarting doing well, and then you're already
like all right, I would liketo go up, but no, I
will wait like a couple more secondsuntil the shots shot is there. Then
you want to go up, andthen you see some different angle and then
(14:00):
all right, let's let's a bitmore. And then it's like, all
right, maybe he's start to gomaybe not. So there's always this,
you know, I can see megetting down there and getting in place and
then going, dang, I gottapee, gotta go back up. You
know, the underwater you can peewhatever you want. It's true. I
never thought about that. Well,maybe if you're in a suit, though
I don't know if that works,does it? You know, you know,
all the all the divers and freedivers, they we divide ourselves for
(14:24):
those who pee in their suit,and then there was who lie about it?
You know, I love it.So that's kind of a that's like
not a weird uncommon thing. Ilove it. See only only on this
show you get asked weird questions likethat. Off the wall. Hey,
one has got a question or twofor he's he's also a photographer and he'd
(14:45):
like to ask you a couple ofthings. One jump on here with us.
Hello One. Is he in thestudio? He was there, We
saw him for the show. He'sholding his breath. Maybe he's in the
bathroom later. Oh okay, okay, Well I'll just ask this and mari
Elli Maria Elli Efadia asks this question, Uh, have you ever seen plastic
(15:13):
pollution in any of the oceans thatyou've filmed in? And I know Marielli
is an environmentalist and which I thinkis very very awesome. She'd like to
know, you know, what,what kind of stuff plastic? Have you
seen anything? And what do yousee? I wish to say that no,
I don't see plastic but unfortunately,I see like every single day,
(15:35):
when you just see a bit,then you are all right, today's note
wasn't that bad? And then youare in the places like Red Sia,
Egypt, for example, which isfull full full of plastic backs. What
all kinds of things do you seedown there? Well? Like what kind
of plastic stuff are we talking about? Mostly mostly backs? Will you see
(15:56):
backs floating grounds or little pieces ofof of plastic of bags or whatever that
you can cannot identify anymore then CocaCola bottles like settled somewhere on the on
the bottom, like even in themost remote places I've been, like your
favorite Malpelo islands. You can youcan tell it again if you want,
(16:19):
which is like five hundred kilometers awayfrom Columbia, like in the middle of
the of the of the of theoption. Even there we found plastic like
floating around. So yeah, Imean, it's it's a big deal.
And it's not only some slogan whichyou here here and there around. It's
it's real, real, real thingall as I understand it. It's in
(16:40):
the fish, fish eat it,I mean, because it's in the we
eat the fish, and it's somehowin there in there there the meat of
there, you know, and weeat that. And those are those like
famous micro microplastics. The ones wesaw that are like let's say, let's
call the microplant sticks. And thenthere are those like very very little pieces
(17:02):
that you can can't see with yourbare eye, and those ones. Yeah,
I mean it's like a cycle.That's fish eat it, then we
eat a fish. Then it's again, I think we were all much better
off when we were drinking coke outof glass bottles. What do you think,
you know? I mean, ittastes better, it looks better,
it's is way easier to recycle.Even if you don't recycle it. It's
(17:26):
that that, but the environment,so yeah, glass forever. Yeah.
The only thing was when you geta broken bottle on the beach, it
can of bad. But all thingsno roses without thorns, right, that's
right, that's absolutely true. Althoughyou know, here's the thing is the
bottle on the beach, a brokenbottle, you could you cut yourself,
you'll heal, But if you eatthe not plastic like and the other you'll
(17:48):
turn it. That's really kind ofnot good. You know, I don't
think you heal from that. Let'ssee here. Okay, what is your
favorite thing to shoot underwater? Wildlife? Definitely wildlife, and then I have
to choose what kind of wildlife?Whales? I mean, it was like,
yeah, it was like a dreamsince forever, Like wales was always
(18:12):
something which was like very very veryinteresting for me. And then when I
start diving, I mean like firstlike snorkeling, then free diving school,
but diving whatever, diving or whatever, just looking in the ocean, like
for meals was always a dream tosee whales and of course to dive with
wales, and of course as Ilike to do photos, to free dive
(18:34):
with whales and doing photos of whales. And I could accomplish this dream two
years ago and I saw my firstwhale. It was a humpback whale in
Baja California and Mexico. And thenever since, I just want to see
more whales. And what kind isyour favorite wale? Which one do you
love shooting? The most cool?So far? Hump packs for sure,
(18:59):
But just met sperm whale for thefor the first time now in December,
and it's very interesting. Specially,I will have a luck now in in
April. I will spend all allmonths in Mauritius, which is well known
for the for the residence population ofsperm whales, and I will have a
bit more time with them, somaybe I will like them even more than
(19:22):
the humpbacks. We'll see. That'scool. Not to be presumptuous, but
what kind of what kind of disastersthat you experienced during a shoot? Disasters?
Let's find some wood around. Sofar, I didn't have any disaster,
(19:42):
but really I would tell I mean, like no water in housings,
like more wood please, no accidents, like really, I'm so far.
I don't know. Maybe I'm luckyor maybe we are doing things right,
but yeah, there's so far,no nothing that I could tell that disaster
(20:02):
of course, like typical stuff likelens cap on the on the lens.
Yeah, it happened to me,like and I guess that for everyone who
shoots underwater, it will it willhappen. I mean, it happens to
all photographers. But as you don'thave your camera and housing, you can
just take let's cap out and keepshooting, right, nothing happens. But
(20:22):
if you are underwater and your lenscup is on the lens, and then
then it's a big deal. Sothen It's like, damn it, this
is like something that that you cantell disaster and the ayeah, it happens
to me like quite late actually lastyear for the first time jumping from the
boat with massive well shark, perfectvisibility and then those like the screen was
(20:45):
very dark. I didn't understand why. And then I turned the camera around
and the lens camp, the lenscap was there smiling to me. It's
like, yeah, I think thatfalls under What type of challenges do you
have to deal with when you cando an underwash? That would be definitely
qualify as one of those, wouldn'tyou agree? Yeah? And I don't
(21:06):
know. I mean, it doeshappen, but it's easy here, but
get underwater, everything changes. Yeah, Hey, what have you? What
have you? What have you notyet had the opportunity to shoot? And
you're like, man, I can'twait for this opportunity that I can shoot
this What would that be? Canyou please repeat? Because I think I
had like a little bit broken connection. I didn't. Oh, yeah,
(21:29):
you're your question, what have younot had the opportunity to shoot yet that
you'd really have been dying to shoot? I was telling you that the whales
are my favorites. So there's stillsome species of whales that I would really
like to see, like blue whale, for example, like the biggest animal
that ever lived on the planet.So really I would really wish to free
(21:52):
life with them and to shoot them. There are some like when when I
people ask me what I like toshoot, and I always tell whales,
but then there are sharks somewhere behindmy head saying hey what about us?
And yeah, there are some likethere's one species of shark it's treasure shark,
which is very quite unique species whichI would really like to to see
(22:15):
and shoot as well. And thelist is like never ending, you know.
Always when I'm like tick one thefirst thing, what happens, I
want to see it again, Andthen there's always some new and new species
that that that they're they're on alist. So yeah, but if I
have to like choose one right now, blue whale for sure. Really about
killer whales, killer whales, I'vesaw them only once and I wish to
(22:37):
see them, and I hope thatI will see them many more time.
Again, I had to wait quitelong to see them. I was like
in I work in bah California quitea lot in Mexico and it's quite I
can't say easy to see them,but it's a good place to have a
luck to see them. And finallyI could, I could, I could
accomplish this dream in the same lastyear and it was like amazing experience,
(23:03):
one of the one of the bestexperience I had underwater for sure. Yeah,
you know, you're thirty four yearsold, and I know, at
least me when I was thirty four, I was bulletproof. But do you
ever is there ever time you getyou get a little scared, you know,
different fish whatever, I mean,you ever get scared. I'm what
I'm scared about is more about losingflights, messing up dates, time zone
(23:30):
changes, Oh my god, yeahyeah, or yeah nothing water no,
no, no, under the waternot really, it's like my happy place.
It's always that everything works there,even if I don't see anything.
I'm just have fun because I'm inwater now. So you get too old
and you go inside of a shipand then you like get stuck or something
(23:51):
like that and you're like, ohno, I'm stuck. I kick it
out of here. No no,no, no, no. It's like
always, I mean when we tryto do fixed well, you know,
always when you get into the place, you always check it before, like
first like go down, take alook, all right, I have to
go in here. Then I goout there, or I have to go
like turn around and go out thesame place. And then really really like
(24:15):
to squeeze myself in places underwater,And it's always and we always want to
find even like like you know,smaller and smaller to swim through. But
even even though I mean there wouldbe always like small places to see and
more gaps to squin cuize in.So we always yea, we always sure
(24:38):
that we are squeezing in and wecan squeeze out also any close calls though
you ever get in here and godamn, I'm not going to do this
again, you know, we're like, okay, man, I didn't get
out of there. No, no, we'll give it time, give it
time, you're bold. I'm sureyou'll get there one of these days.
(24:59):
Hey, you know. And that'sthe thing when it's a beautiful thing when
you're in your thirties and twenties andyou know, like, hey, I'm
going to try that's the adventure.I mean, that is the adventure.
You know, just hopefully make itout. Yeah, and I really like,
I feel so glad about this thatI can like live an adventure and
I'm it's I'm doing things that sometimesI really I have to stop think,
(25:22):
I don't know me, Am Ireally here? Am I really doing here?
Or we are really going there tosee that? Really it's like sometimes
that I really have to stop andthink, and I'm sometimes I can't believe.
That's kind OF's surreal. Yeah,yeah, and that is a pretty
cool feeling, I'm sure. Sowhat's the most interesting thing that you've discovered
(25:42):
when you were shooting a shipwreck?On the shipwrecks, you know, it's
like always a mystery because it's awreck, so it's always hiding this mystery.
That's why it's there, how it'ssunk. You have to find them.
Some of them are easy to find, some of them you have to
really like search for it free.Well, I remember that one time in
(26:03):
Anzarotte, we were looking for onevery really particular one. We knew that
it's there, it's been like thepeople were diving there, but we like
ask like three or four different divecenters and people who seem to know where
it is, and it's like alwaysthere saying yahya is there? No,
no, no, it's there andyeah now it's right there, so we
(26:25):
like it. Yeah, it took. It took us like three days of
exploring, and when we were thatit will not appear, we were like,
okay, this is the last timewe will go. We'll try and
if we don't find it, justlet's let's let's have it again. Yeah.
Yeah, and then we were likeit was like really, I went
all right, uh, I'll justgo down and see because it was like
(26:48):
quite quite deep one like lying onforty meters, so if they get visibility
and we had very good visipity thatday, we should see like more or
less that it's there's something. ButI was like, all right, I'll
just go down and see what's what'sthere because I was like quite worried of
swimming around for hours. And thenI was like I went down like maybe
(27:08):
yeah, that went down to betwenty meters and I was like going forwards
a bit and then it's just boom, you know, just appeared in front.
And I was like, no way, really, it's like feeling that
you think that it will never happenand it just boom. It's just that's
nice. Are you doing scuba gearwhen you're going on for these shipwrecks?
Are you free diving? Always?When I I mean I do both,
(27:32):
but always when I can, andit's when it's it's possible. I prefer
free diving way more than scuba.Really. There are some particular there are
some particular jobs which are easier todo scuba diving, But most of the
stuff, and most what work yousee me doing, it's always free diving.
Why is that? Why do youprefer that? Free diving for me
was always way more natural the wayof exploring underwater world. It's always feels
(27:56):
easier for me to just you know, put like minimal gear, just go
down and enjoy water in this free, free way. Scuba was always like
too much stuff you have to puton the top. You have to like
this, yeah, I mean havethis, have this tank on the on
(28:17):
on your back. Then you ifyou don't swim, you just you know,
move around. In free diving,you are really really free. And
then for to do some jobs,it's way easier, I mean, especially
if you if you work with people, I mean even talking sometimes you don't
understand each other. So underwater whenyou have to oh sure and free diving,
(28:41):
we go down, we should thenwe go up. We can talk
to each other. We can sayall right, man, maybe try to
sit there or look there, swimlike this this direction or that direction,
or go there, do that.Yeah, and it's and we can we
can. We can finish the jobway easier there. And then just scuba
diving, we are not limited tothe to the time which which you know,
(29:03):
the tanks get empty on like halfan hour, forty minutes, one
hour or whatever, and then youhave to go and switch for another.
For in free diving, we canspend like hours and just go up and
down how many times we want.So, yeah, definitely, can I
always all do free diving? Puttingnext all that stuff on takes time too,
I'm sure you know, and eventaking it off, right, So
(29:26):
what which? Okay, so youknow here, what's the deepest I mean?
And I say this because not everyshipwreck is forty meters? Right,
Some of them are really really deep, Like what's the deepest that you've ever
gone done an underwater shoot? Thedeepest photoshoots so far will be yeah,
(29:48):
forty meters, which is actually thelimit of what my housing which I'm using
now allows me we have already wehave projects to shoot deeper than that,
but so far we haven't done itbecause of the housing and it's like pretty
expensive piece of gear which you cannotjust switch to a new one whatever you
want. So yeah, so farlike forty meters forty five. Even like
(30:11):
you know, we have like thedeepest pool in Europe, it's in Poland,
and we did, like we shooton the very bottom, which is
forty five. And here in Tenarifa, we did a shooting in one very
particular place which is one of thelike most iconic dive spots here in Tenerifa.
It's like exact forty meters deep.It's like basaltic columns, which it
(30:34):
looks like Atlantis. It's like itlooks like made by human because the the
the columns are like perfect hexagonal shape, totally straight. You we usually we
don't see straight lines in nature,and there you can find perfect straight line
columns one and next to another.And it was like only a handful of
(30:59):
times it was done in free diving, and was never shoot in free diving,
and and we did with my withmy colleagues, we did it once
two times already, and we're alreadyplanning to go come back again. You
know, I can imagine when youcome home from work, it's not like
you're stressed out and all that kindof stuff. It's like, you really
had a very cool day and youdid a lot of cool stuff. You
saw a lot of cool things.And I'm sure you know. I wonder
(31:22):
people that do kind of things likeyou do. I wonder if like sometimes
that keeps you up at night thinkingabout the things that you've done, the
places you've been, things you've seen. Is that true? You know?
Usually what I'm thinking is where togo next? Not too much reflection,
but more looking at looking ahead.What keep what keeps me busy usually is
where to go next? Or what'swhat's for? What's what's for Tomorrow's the
(31:47):
plan for tomorrow was what's the what'snext? Trip? So of course,
yeah, I usually when I'm editingphotos on videos, then I'm coming back
again to the moment when I wasshooting, and maybe I have like having
the results in front of me.I have this moment of thinking, all
right, I remember when we wereplanning the play to go there and shoot,
(32:10):
when we were have the idea forthe photos, and now I have
a photo in front of me.So yeah, then there's a moment when
I when I go back in time. But usually if if I'm sitting doing
nothing, which doesn't happen really often, then I'm mostly thinking, all right,
what's what's next. That's pretty cool. But I think you're living the
dream. I think I think you'reliving the dream at least at least at
(32:32):
least mind dream. Yes, forsure, Yeah, absolutely absolutely. All
right, Well, listen, we'vegot some really cool photos that you sent
to us, and I believe oneshould have those, and maybe we can
cut those up, take a lookat them, and you can tell us
a little bit about each one ofthem. Here we go, all right,
you can here you can see abeautiful smile of the tiger shark.
(32:53):
Tiger sharks is one of the biggestspeech shifts of sharks. Very friendly.
You know how to approach them.I'm usually quite scared and aware of humans,
so they don't really interact with humans. But if you do things right,
they feel safe enough and they canclose like on this photo for example.
(33:14):
I've heard there's a trick to that. I mean, there's a way
to approach them, and they're notscared, they're not in attack mode or
all that that's true though, yeah, it is. It is, so
you always have to like keep aneye contact with them. You can hear
see the same tiger shark and asyou can see, they are very very
nice and friendly. So if youapproach them correctly, there's no no,
(33:37):
no problem to to die for freelife with them or the best thing is
just always be sure that there issomewhere closer to the shark than you are
and then you are safe. Youknow, they look so cool, I
mean that that's just been a beautifulfish. Yeah. Here we have we
have a manta rayce in in Malnives. There's one particular bay in Maltives which
(34:00):
is protected by UNESCO, which iswell known of the accumulation of of mantas.
They usually they I mean they usuallyare together, but not in so
huge numbers. And in this smallbay which is like not bigger than soccer
playground, and they have you canhave more than two hundreds of them together.
(34:20):
Wow, So it's it gets reallycrazy. I had like to be
there like three four times already.You have to even even though if it's
known that they are there and theycan like gather together, it's not not
that easy to see, like somany of them together at once, and
a few times I had. Iwas really lucky to witness that. No,
obviously they're not afraid of you.I mean no, not at all.
(34:44):
They are just doing their thing.They are feeding, they're feeding on
plankt on, you know, thesmallest features living out there in the in
the suspended in the in the water. So they are doing their thing,
just flying around eating and as longas you are not on the way,
that they don't care at all.And if you're on the way, they
just dodg you. And that's okay. That's it. That means any danger
level, what's the danger level?The no? Nothing, zero. I
(35:07):
mean, if you know how toswim, there's no danger. Yeah,
bigf. There's a big F.I don't love it. That's beautiful.
All right. Here you can seea friend of mine, Victor also excellent
photographer, doing what he loves andwhat I love, free diving in the
(35:27):
caves. It's in Minorca, Spain, in Balaric Islands, which is very
famous. I don't know now it'snot famous of that, but it's among
the divers. It's famous because ofthe caves. It's the entire islands is
like a Swiss cheese and this isone of our favorite ones. You have
to like go down maybe eight ninemeters, then swim fifteen inside of the
(35:52):
cave. And inside the cave thereis a huge like bubble of air which
you can see on the top ofthis photo, so you can actually be
there. You can be there likebreathing and free diving inside of the inside
of the cave. How does that, I mean, is that air just
been there or does it get resuppliedsomehow? Mom? It has like very
small connections outside, like very verylike tiny holes which reached the surface.
(36:16):
And then yeah, and it's reallyreally big like inside you can we could
beat like like a size of thesmall house, Like I mean the airspace
which is on the top you knowthat pic. That water looks super clear
and that blue that's not a filterthat you put on there. That's really
well, yeah, exactly like Monorcais very like entire Mediterranean has this very
(36:39):
nice blue collar and usually especially inthe summer when the sea is calm,
the visibility is great, so likeit's all together makes a perfect place for
underwater shootings. That's beautiful. Andthen people put plastic and pollute that,
you know, Yeah, exactly.Yeah, here's exactly the same spot.
(36:59):
Just we with Victor playing and inventingstuff. So here he's he's a torch,
pointing the torch away from him,creating this nice, nice effect exactly
the same the same place that inthe in the photo before. It's amazing
that you have that much light onthe outside. Yeah, it's like that
summer summer in Spain, a lotof sun. So yeah, enjoying that
(37:22):
even underwater. Beautiful, just beautifulagain, Manta again, mantas in here
you can you can see that,you can, you can swim between between
of them and there's no problem atall. They are just doing their thing.
They don't really they're not bothered,they don't care. So you can
really enjoy the time and this theshow of the of the nature. They
(37:45):
look like little airplanes, don't they. They are They look like spacecraft like
from Star Trek or Star Wars orsomething exactly really like, and they really
look like flying, you know,they have those wings and they are like
they be. You can you canyou can see here like this always.
I really like to put this humansilhouette somewhere so you can see the sides
(38:07):
of the so you can see thesize of the animal or on the landscape.
So here you can perfectly see howbig they are. They have like
three four meters wingspan, so big, guys, Holy smokes, there we
go. Oh, here we go. We were talking about shipwrecks. This
is one of my favorites. Isin Tnadifa, one of the places,
(38:29):
like we're at first we're doing likereal free diving, and it was one
of the first places I visited.And here we are together with Miguel Losano.
One of the deepest month of Earth. He dived to like one hundred
and twenty five five believe, Soyeah, he knows what he's doing.
So yeah, he's enjoying. Here, nice photoshoot what we did. And
(38:51):
actually behind him you can see ascuba diver, so you can see that
the usually people scuba dive. Therewe are on the thirty meters here on
this photo. Oh, this isonly thirty meters here only. Yeah,
so let me Okay, this isa really morbid question, but I have
to ask because that's just who Iam. Do you ever find anything creepy
on those ships, like you know, little skeletons or anything like that,
(39:14):
you know, No, maybe youcan, yeah, you can find a
face of moor a eel like creepingfrom some from some hole or something.
But then they are you know,they have this like no humans black but
human. You know. Usually allthose places are quite well known, like
many people like dive there like daily. So and this for example, this
(39:36):
shipwreck in particular was sunk on thepurpose to create like artificial reef, so
all the all the skeletons were wellremoved before they sunk it. But yeah,
for example, there are some synotisin in Mexico, Mexico with where
you can actually find like schools andskeletons, reason and not as were yees.
Not as were like for the forthe natives, for Mayans, they
(39:59):
were like sacred place places, andfor some of them they were like throwing.
I believe that dead people already asto like to yeah, like to
you know, some kind of cemetery, and and now like as the places
were discovered as a very nice cavediving places, and you can you can
(40:22):
find those skeletons there. But inmore places where I've been so far,
they are too well known to tofind those kinds of things. Interesting.
Wow, Wow, those are Thoseare mobilar arrays, the smaller cousins of
mantas which we've seen on the otherother photos. This is in Baja California,
(40:43):
the place where it's known of uhlike all kind of underwater wildlife.
Is there. One of my favoriteplaces to to dive for sure. And
it's insane to see so many ofthose animals together and they tend to create
a groups of thousands sometimes. Yeah. So what same place, the same
(41:07):
place, a little bit more faraway offshore. Marlin's hunting the sardines here
and there is this famous event ofsardin run, the most famous sardine run
we know. It's like South SouthAfrica that the sardians they create schools so
big that they can be seen fromthe moon and from the outer space.
(41:31):
The sardine one run in Mexico isway smaller, but still it's a really
nice show. Maybe the sardians arenot the most interesting animals in the world,
but everything goes after the saldlines reallyis. So for example, here
Marlin's hunting them, hunting them down. It's really beautiful show that Marlin itself.
(41:51):
It's amazing fish as you can see, like with the with this with
the sail on the top of thespike, with the colors, the stripes.
It's amazing to see them hunting sofast, so precise. Interesting,
here's the question. I see thateverything seems like it's very well lit.
How do you handle lighting on thewater. Are you just shooting at a
(42:13):
higher iesol? I mean yeah,I mean high ISO and mother sensors helped
a lot. Basically, many peopleuse strokes for other water photography, which
is the way to provide some morelight as I usually see, like I
like the wide angle and stuff whichcannot be lit or will be very difficult
(42:35):
to lead with the strokes. Iuse only natural light, so you have
to be very careful when you areexposing, and then there is a lot
to do also in post processing regardingthe light and the colors. Also,
because water works as a filter,so deeper you dive more, red light
is filtered out, so you alwayshave to do a little bit of post
(42:59):
production. Interesting, so the redlight is deep. Yeah, that's why
that's why everything is blue underwater,you know, because the the blue light
which is it's which stays and thenthe red, yellow, green are are
fading away. Interesting, here wecan see a whale shark, the biggest
fish that lives currently in on ouron the in our world, they can
(43:24):
grow up to like eighteen meters.This is in Maldives. So this one
was yeah, this one was waysThis one was ways smaller and it was
maybe maybe ten meters, but it'sstill impressive to see a fish that that
size and they eat plankton. Andthis is This is also the one of
the type of photography which I dojust explore places. This is in the
(43:50):
Red Sea in that hub. Nowthat hab is very famous because one the
next Netflix movie which was done aboutdone about free diving there in that hub.
The deep breath is cold. Andthis is right next to the place.
What I write like about the redseeds not only the coral and so
much marine life, small life whichlives on the coral lives, but also
(44:15):
the rock formations, a lot ofcaves, cracks and stuff. This is
the crack which starts from like asurface and it goes all the way to
like fifteen meters deep. Here weare maybe like fifteen meter like on the
halfway. You know, it's soclear it almost doesn't look like it's underwater
right the ground here, Yeah,yeah, it's always the deal of looking
(44:37):
for a day with good visibility.Like we are always talking about visibility.
How always when you when you goto the water and see people going outside,
you always ask, hey, howis the visibility? Or when you
know that your your body was diving, it was like, hey man,
how is the visibility? Do youthink that to worrow would be good?
So it's all about visibility. Yeah, in order to get the best line
(45:00):
underwater, what would you say thebest time of the day is to go
m same rules as outside always likethis golden hour in the morning, the
evening we give you like the mostinteresting and dramatic light maybe the golden hour
and the water is a bit beforethen it's outside the water. But then
(45:22):
when you in the water, wealways have we never have enough lights.
So when the when we're talking aboutthis shooting outside, we always say that
shooting at twelve o'clock one two islike a big no, then underwater is
not that big deal. So becauseyou need more light, right exactly,
(45:44):
Yeah, here we can see likeone of my kind like favorite kind of
photos underwater is these split shots whichyou can when you can show underwater world
and outside on the same shot.It's quite yeah, quite difficult to because
you need to have the surface ofthe water right in the middle of the
of the dome. So quite challengingto shoot, but very very like this,
(46:10):
this type of shot, I'm guessingyou can only do it during Golden
hour because of the dynamic range correcthmm. For example, I hear it
was like on the almost in theevening that you can see this, uh,
this warm light as you as youwill said, it's it's maybe it's
not golden hour, but it's alreadygoing towards the evening. And also because
(46:32):
here in this particular cave, thelight goes in only like when the sun
is quite low already. If not, it's like the ceiling, the ceiling
of the of the cave would bevery very dark. It's very cool.
This is awesome. This is justawesome. It looks like a beehive,
doesn't it. Like, yeah,it's a doughnut of sardines, you know,
(46:57):
the school of fish, the schoolof fish. Yeah, those are
sardines. When they they only waitfor them to defend themselves. It's to
get together create like a ball.And then the chances that a particular saldin
will survive are way bigger if thenthan when they are separated. So when
(47:20):
they are chased, they are alwaysgetting god together and they move like a
huge, one big organism, andthey are very well organized together. They
really act, they really act asone big thing, like something that has
not like it's not made of onethousands of little brains. It looks like
one animal which is actually moving.And then yeah, here on this photo
(47:45):
you could see marlins in particular,or they do. They try, They
put them even more together, andthen they move them up towards the surface,
so they cannot run away at leastin this dimension they cannot run away
even more more so they can handthem easier. You know, people that
are just listening to these episodes,you really need to watch a certain ones.
(48:07):
This for sure. It's just thisphoto is just amazing. That huge
school of sardines. I mean,this is phenomenal. There's a very cool
picture, very clear into that water. Look at that. Yeah, that's
what I told you about. That'swhat I told you about Menorca and what
your friend asked about. The timing. This is like evening light, so
(48:30):
you can see how nice and warmlight we can get underwater. So it's
the same exact rule that we useon the top side photography. And what
I like to do sometimes is createdthis. It's of course it's staged.
No one does like walking somewhere andjust petting the plants and the water.
(48:52):
But what I like to show thatunderwater world it's not that far from us,
so it's you. We can staythere, we can be there,
we can you know, interact withit. So when you can see a
human just underwater, just with hishair's wetsuit, just a mask, it
(49:13):
looks like way more accessible than whenyou see a scuba diver with all the
gear who looks like an astronaut.So these kind of photos always we have
some of those in our mind andwe really enjoy these kind of shootings.
Wow yeah, beautiful. Ah.And here it's a photo I told you
forty meters deep, perfect straight linesof basaltic rock here in Tenarifa. So
(49:39):
this is one of the like thedeepest and most challenging shootings we've ever done.
When you look at the top ofthose little mountains, hills or how
to call it, this is twentymeters deep and when the guy is standing,
When the guy is standing, it'salready forty meters. So it's like
a lot of preparation. You needskill people with you not only to pose
(50:06):
on a photo, but also tolike the people who wait on us for
us on the surface to do,to do safety for us to be sure
that we are safe and we canreach the surface. So these kind of
shootings are really complex to organize andto and to to prepare to and to
and to do. Just amazing,just amazing. Yeah, this is inside
(50:30):
of the Mather earth and underwater.So this is an underwater cave which it's
so big that it penetrates like kilometersinside of the Menorca and on some parts
it's like half of it is dryand it creates those amazing stalactites stalagmnes just
really looks like different planets. Yeahmm hmm. And yeah here what I
(50:57):
what I told you before, Likeinteraction with the life. It's always the
most magic moments when you can spotan animal, when you can swim with
it, when you can see thatanimal also is curious about you, and
it's not like swimming away or runningaway, but it stays there, is
it looks at you. Here thesame sea lions they are or playful or
(51:21):
they just don't want you to bethere. And this this is the case,
this is the match of alpha.So he has his the group of
his of his of his females aroundhim. He just doesn't want me to
be there. So what they dois just they just rush, just they
rush to you and then they opentheir mouth to show how big, how
(51:45):
big mouth they have. So thereis like a message for you, all
right, go away here. Ihave bigger tooth than you have. All
right, I think this was thelast photo we were part. There we
go, We're back on the We'reback on the show. Well, but
(52:07):
check where can where can people findyou online? So far I'm on Instagram.
I think you can, guys,you can put it somewhere somewhere around
so people so people can can clickand look for my Instagram. This is
the place where where I can whereI when I so far, where I
post my work is I find itthe most easy to to deliver my work
(52:30):
to to the people. There aresome like website is on the way and
stuff, so maybe in the future, but so far, the Instagram,
like nowadays, I think it exists. Yeah, that's definitely the place when
you can you can share and youcan what's important. What I like about
this platform that everyone can comment,everyone can write you, so it's not
only you that you show your work, but you can get in touch with
(52:52):
the pop Yeah. Absolutely, bycheck Listen. I want to thank you
so much for being our guest hereon Outdoors People pleasure here having you in
wonderful work that you do. Really, kudos to you, sir. It's
my pleasure. Thank you very muchfor having me here. It was really
nice to talk to you guys,and I hope that you enjoyed it and
that your audience enjoyed it as well. Yeah, well, thank you,
(53:14):
I know I certainly did. Well. Be sure to tune in for next
week's episode, free fallse Cinematography withour guest Joe Jennings. Until then,
enjoy your evening and we'll see younext week
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