Page 100 - AlertDiver_Winter2013
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WINTER 2013
SF
//
Today La Mer is no more. What happened?
AN
// Basically, I got burned out. I still wanted to be a
photographer, but I had become a businessman. We sold the
company, and I set out to find what I could do in underwater
photography. I was actually a bit disillusioned with what I was
seeing in the dive media of the day. Ninety percent of everything
published seemed to be about macro or divers. Nobody was
covering the ocean giants I so revered, and even if there was
an article about megafauna, it seemed to emphasize the danger
instead of the glory of such an encounter. I’d seen orcas, great
whites and whales by then, and they were what motivated me.
That’s what the travel company I now run, Big Animals
Expeditions, is all about. I figured I could find a few souls with
a sense of adventure like mine, and we could share something
special in the sea. I had some experience leading small groups
of filmmakers during charters that the BBC and National
Geographic booked with La Mer, and that was my concept. I
would specialize in small groups and target just a single species
at a time, to be there at the prime season for optimal behavioral
activities, whether it was breeding or predation or migration.
SF
//
Do you even shoot macro or reef scenics on these trips?
AN
// Not really. I travel with a Canon 1Ds Mark III and a 1D
Mark IV in Seacam housings for my underwater work and bring
only wide-angle lenses such as the 8-15mm, 14mm II, 15mm,
16-35mm II, 24mm f/1.4 and the 50mm f/1.2. I’ll bring a Canon
1D X body and a 600mm telephoto plus tripod if I’m going to
Antarctica, Africa or India for the snow leopard. But I’m not the
guy who prowls the reef with my 100mm macro searching for
nudibranchs. For me it is all about big marine life.
SF
//
I’ve noticed your coverage of many destinations
tends to be among the first. Take sailfish off Isla Mujares,
for example. I’ve seen a lot of shooters visit there in the
past few years, yet your images of the billfish there are the
first I saw. That had to be a bit of a risk to try for the first
time — not knowing whether you’d spend considerable
time and money and get skunked.
AN
// Well, first of all, I don’t go into these things blind.
Every two years there is a big marine-mammal conference,
and I attend to sit among highly educated people and listen
to what they are doing and where. I make connections with
the researchers, and of course I try to connect with sport
fishermen. That first trip for sailfish was done with one of the
most well-known of all billfishermen, Guy Harvey. Another
big breakthrough, photographically, for me was my early
work with orcas in Norway. In 1992 a guy came to DEMA
from Norway promoting the chance to swim with orcas. The
next year I was there when no one else wanted to go. It was
a risk, but a calculated one based on diligent and detailed
research and a willingness to gamble.
I figure if I want to do one of these adventures, there must
be others like me. If you look at some theories of psychology,
particularly neurolinguistic programming, they posit that there
IMAGING
//
S H O O T E R
SEE MORE
Blue whale tale, Sea of Cortez, Baja California — I was
fully outfitted for diving, wetsuit and tank on my back,
when the driver whispered “ballena azul,” blue whale.
I rushed to my camera bag, picked up the camera,
hesitating a moment when I realized I had a fisheye
lens attached. Closer and closer I willed the boat,
and on the third shutter click I had it.
