Diving on reefs no one may have dived on before is incredible. In saying that, human impact can be seen in the most remote of places. Sometimes, it’s the most remote locations that are the most vulnerable!

Todd Thimios describes himself as an Australian underwater photographer with a few strange qualifications. Involved in expeditions with photography today, Todd teaches and guides diving and underwater photography for small private groups. He is also a certified submersible pilot and a fisherman, a couple of extra statuses that makes him stranger than we thought. 

Over the years, he’s been working along some of the world’s most renowned underwater cinematographers, taken under the wing by a few mentors. Today, Todd spends his year following the migrations of marine mammals to be at the right place at the right time. « I really love encounters with big marine life. Holding my ground watching, waiting and trying to get close with trust. The encounters are so powerful. I’m the happiest when in the water I find salt water fixes everything. » We spoke to him about great white sharks and whales, his vision about commercial fishing, freediving as a form of meditation, as well as the human impact on natural environments.

When have you been introduced to photography?  

I think it was my grandfather that gave me my first camera. It was an old SLR that was super confusing to use initially but forced me to learn the foundations of photography pretty quick. I always shot with film in my teenage years and actually studied darkroom processing for a year or so once out of school. I guess it was always about trying to capture memories back then. I’m still finding undeveloped film rolls of mine when I visit family back in Australia. Developing 35mm film rolls 20 years later can certainly bring back some nostalgia. 

Where does this passion for underwater photography come from? 

Before everything, I’ve always been an avid fisherman and diver. This was installed in me by my father and uncle who lived and breathed fishing all their life growing up on the Great Barrier Reef. Some of my earliest memories are learning to snorkel on the reef. I think underwater photography was always going to be a natural merge of hobbies. 

Then, you became dive instructor. What did your life look like at the time?

It looked good (laughs), real good! I lived on a small island between Australia and New Zealand for around 6 or 7 years. The population was small, only about 500 people on average but the island was, and still is, incredibly beautiful and I was spending hours and hours underwater everyday.

Never far from water, right? 

Yeah! I’ve been lucky enough to have traveled a lot over the years, and still get really excited by the idea of going to new locations. I think after a while marine life really started to orientate my traveling. Knowing a location was popular for a certain natural event. Maybe migrations of marine mammals frequent an exact location each year or certain species of sharks arrive to one spot as temperatures cool. Now, it’s all about researching where and why it’s going to happen and trying to be there for when it does.

For the last decade, you’ve been sailing and diving around the world, through the Maldives, Costa Rica and Patagonia. How was it like to dive some of the world’s best and most remote locations? 

I’m always doing my best on trips to get remote. I find peace so much quicker in isolated places. Diving on reefs you think no one may have dived on before is incredible. In saying that, the human impact can be seen in the most remote of places. Sometimes it’s the most remote locations that are the most vulnerable! Nowadays massive commercial fishing boats can spend months at sea without returning to port. They catch – using illegal, unsustainable techniques – process, pack and freeze all while at sea, meaning they can continue this for months before having to go back to shore. Imagine locations so remote in the middle of the Pacific that, even though they may be protected by laws against commercial fishing, they’re just too far from anything to be policed.

You have some records under your belt like a hundred of dives to depth as deep as 380 meters. Is performance a part of your passion for diving? 

These depths are done in a submersible. I gained certification a few years back as submersible pilot. These are small Submarines that can take normally 2 or 3 passengers to depths up to 1000 meters. It’s another world! 

The unique silence, this colorful life… The underwater world is very special. How would you describe the life out there?

Freediving, with or without a camera, certainly is a form of meditation. I tend to think about nothing but only what I’m doing in that moment whilst diving. I can’t find that clarity anywhere else. Then there’s the relationship and awareness with marine life. I really love encounters with big marine life. Holding my ground watching, waiting and trying to get close with trust. The encounters can be so powerful. I’m happiest when in the water I find salt water fixes everything. 

Over the years, you’ve been in the forefront of the rich diversity of marine life. What would be your message to the future generations?

Probably to just try to gain an interest and fascination in your subject. I find the more I learn about something or a place I’m about to see, the more excited and fascinated I become. Learning about the biology of sharks has helped me understand their behavior, learning migration patterns of whales, for example, has left me in awe of the journey that they must have completed and the state they must be in. Also, if a camera is anything – it’s a great tool to get you outside and traveling – it may put you in places or situations you never would have dreamt of.

Today, you dedicate some of your projects to the conservation of our oceans. Tell us more about these projects.

I’ve been based in Spain for a while now and I’ve been helping contribute to a few organizations that are aiming to bring awareness about single use plastic. It’s interesting to see that some countries are fully aware of the issues of single use plastic and others – sometimes strong modern and advanced economies – just have no idea. Another thing that I touched on earlier is commercial fishing. I’m finding more and more the reality of the situation is just not seen or known by the public.

What’s next for you Todd? 

I have a few trips this year lined up hopefully. One that I am really excited about is a return to the Arctic in the north of Norway, a place that I absolutely love. I’m showing my photography at a gallery for the first time later in the year, which is new and exciting. Also, I’ve started a new degree in Marine Science and Management. So, overall, things are pretty exciting.

Discover more of Todd Thimios’ work on his website.

The post Todd Thimios: “Salt water fixes everything” appeared first on PANTHALASSA.

Recently, Dubai hosted the Red Bull Cliff Diving in Dubai Marina. For the last step of the World Series 2016, world-class cliff divers joined to compete on Pier7, an iconic building offering a panoramic view on the magnificent Dubai marina. On October 28, 2016, Pier7, well-known as the home of some of the emirate’s most popular dining spots, has been transformed into a 27 meters-high diving board. The occasion for Panthalassa to meet Orlando Duque and draw up a portrait of the world’s best cliff diver.

Tell us more about your background and career as an icon in the world of high diving…

I started diving in a pool in Colombia. I used to go to the pools to watch the divers. I really liked the color of the pool, not so much the swimming pool, but I liked the dark blue of the diving pool. As a little kid, I used to go and watch the divers practice. Then, the coaches asked me if I wanted to try. The next day, I was there and I fell in love with this sport. Since then, I just wanted to keep practicing and learning more.

When did you go from classic diving to cliff diving?

I did that for about ten years. I was competing with the national team, doing all the regular competitions. Every pool is the same, every pool looks the same. It does no matter where you are, it’s always the same height and the same conditions. Everything is very similar. So, after a while, it started to get more attracting to be outside, to start different places and start jumping. I was hired to do a contract in Austria, to do a jumping show. While I was there, I started watching the Red Bull World Championship on TV. I though ‘I think I can do that!’ So I started training for that. I went for my first competition in 1999, and I placed second. When I placed 2nd, I thought ‘I think I could be really good at it’. That’s pretty much when it became really serious. I remember telling myself: ‘Now I’m gonna practice really hard, I’m gonna dedicate myself and make it a career’.

You define cliff diving as, I quote, »The more natural form of diving«. Why?

I think so, this is what I always tell people. I love finding one rock that is there. If it’s deep water, we are ready to dive. All I need to do is jump. So it’s a little bit more natural than jumping in a pool. When you’re in a pool, you have to build a platform, you have to build a pool, you have to build all these things. You’re adapting everything for you to be able to dive. Whereas in cliff diving, you’re in nature, I’m adapting myself to the conditions. I’m making sure that I can jump in those conditions. It’s much more natural than anything else.

 What does it feel when you’re up there? How do you describe this adrenaline?

From the heights that I jump, a lot of people would probably never jump. But when you find a little rock on a nice afternoon, you’ll see that a lot of people is jumping. You go to any beach that has a rock anywhere in the world, and you can see people jumping from the very little rocks. That’s where I go to the point of almost everybody has done a cliff dive or a dive at least. And that’s already enjoying cliff diving. I see the world with different eyes. I walk around, I look at the balconies from hotels, I look if there’s a pool, and if I can maybe jump from there. I see a rock, I look how beautiful it is, but I also start looking to see if there’s a possibility to jump. If there’s a bridge, I look down to the river to see if the water is deep enough. I enjoy it so much. To me, it’s finding places to jump, that’s where the fun is.

Is there a part of craziness or everything is under control? 

To do it at the level we’re doing it right now, everything has to be under control. The risk is too high, the maneuvers we’e doing in the air are too complicated. You have to be trained for many years to do what we do. At that level, everything has to be under control. Normal people may need more craziness than skills, cause the skills can take so much time to learn. If somebody wants to jump, it doesn’t have to be super high, maybe just 5 meters-high. To a lot of people, it’s already very high. You need a little bit of craziness telling you in your head ‘Just run and jump!’ But after the jump, when everything goes okay and you’re underwater and everything is fine, you feel like you’re so happy! That contrast is the nicest feeling that you get out of a cliff dive.

Sometimes you dive from a cliff, some others you dive at night from a building in a marina. How exciting is it to discover different places and different atmospheres depending on the location you dive from?

That’s basically the reason that brought me to cliff diving. All the pools are the same; some are inside, some are outside but all the pools are the same. With cliff diving, we change locations every single time. Some are gonna be at night, some are gonna be in a building, some are gonna be from a bridge. Everything changes so much that you need to adapt really quickly. You need to be able to be versatile and well-prepared because we don’t have so much time to get ready to the location. That makes the whole thing much more interesting. To me, that’s what makes it much more challenging and more attracting. A lot of times, I get so focus in my dive that I completely forget about everything else that surrounds me. After the dive, I look around and I’m like ‘Whoa’! It’s one the nicest component of the dive. Yes, I do enjoy very much the dive itself but just exploring all these locations, going around the world, and seeing all these different places is such a cool part of this sport. 

Credit photos: Romina Amato / Jason Halyko / Dean Treml

The post The Godfather of Cliff Diving – part 1 appeared first on PANTHALASSA.

For more than 1,700 years, haenyeo have been diving in the sea, harvesting shellfish and seaweed. In the Korean province of Jeju, sea women dive up to ten metres holding their breath for over two minutes, with no breathing equipment. Between 2012 and 2014, photographer Hyung S. Kim regularly went to Jeju to document the haenyeo.  The profession is practiced today by a majority of women in their 60s and older, who dive all year round, wearing old-fashioned headlight-shaped scuba mask. Persuading divers to have their pictures taken as they emerged from the water, Kim’s portraits show wrinkled faces and grey hair personalities who are likely be the last generation of haenyeo. We met up with Kim to discuss these women’s stories, often described as sea warriors, risking their life scouring the ocean floor. 

Hi Hyung, could you tell us more about your background?

I was born in Seoul and I still live in Seoul today. I own a photo studio called ‘Studio Zip’. I have been working on portraits for the last 20 years. Four years ago, I decided to focus on a personal project and created my very first portrait series. That’s how »Haenyeo« came to life.

‘Haenyeo’ was born in Jeju Island in 2012, photographing South Korean female divers. How did you come across these women?

Four years ago, while I was traveling on Jeju Island, I came across the Haenyeo. They had just finished working and were coming out of the water. I had heard about the Haenyeo but that day was the first time I saw a haenyeo with my own eyes. Seeing them right after all their extremely hard work, I felt very moved and I wanted to capture that moment.

How did you persuade the divers to have their pictures taken as they emerged from the water?

Many times I tried to photograph them but the women were not very open to it. Most of the Haenyeo were not co-operative with any kind of photography projects, or interviews, because they are just tired. This was a very difficult process, as they were not used to being photographed, especially against an artificially created background, so they would often avoid me entirely. Mostly, they don’t think their work is something to be praised. I asked them before they went into the water and then waited for 4-5 hours to photograph them. Finally, it was worth it. From then, I have been lucky to photograph them many times and I now know them very well. I also learnt their names, and about their family members. Today, when they see me, they are very kind to me,  like my own grand mother would be.

What kind of relationship do these women have with the sea?

They’ve been working as Haenyeo, or sea women, most of their life. They usually start working at a young age, when they are 13 years old. They spend more than 50 years of their life in the ocean. Sea women dive more 100 times a day. They risk their life at work, but they do it for their family. 

These women have made their living harvesting seafood, by hand, from the ocean floor. With no breathing equipment, they are able to stay under water for long periods of time and dive to great depths. How are they considered in their village?

30 years ago, Haenyeo were considered to be at a lower rung of the social structure. Because Jeju Island is a volcanic island, it is very tough to make a living on the ground. At the time, catching fish and other seafood was the main means to live better and make money. It was a tough life but it remained the only choice they had to make a living. It’s never been leisure for them. In March 2014, the government requested the UNESCO to add Haenyeo to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list. Over the past two years, people have begun to respect them and see them as a great part of the country’s cultural heritage.  However, old Haenyeos are not used to that situation yet. That’s why they are not very happy to be photographed. Also, many people visit Jeju to see them as a touristic scene. There’s even the Haenyeo Museum in Jeju today, which bothers them a lot. Sea women just want to continue their everyday job.

Can you tell us more about what it feels to meet such unique female divers?

I learned so much thanks to them, and thanks to photography. The Haenyo are skilled at free diving to depths of 60 feet. After they come out from diving, they make long breathing sounds. That’s the sound of life that you cannot hear anywhere else. This is the confirmation that they survived the dive. This sound is both very beautiful and also very sad. Most of the Haenyoes have lived underwater most of their life, so they are exposed to many dangers from the diving. They suffer various health problems, such as hearing loss and chronic headaches. They continually take medication to keep diving, and overuse analgesics. It doesn’t stop them for it is the only life they know – they are the Mothers of the Sea and Mother Sea herself.

How do they cope knowing they are the last generation of sea women? 

They have been working as Haenyeo for 3 or 4 generations and feel certain they will be the last generation. Their kids don’t work as haenyeo. Their daughters, who grew up in a modern technological society of relative affluence, are not interested. The sea women don’t want any of their kids to work as haenyeo either, because it’s such a hard work!  

The resulting portraits are very natural: Tired faces full of strength. What were your intentions behind these pictures?

There was a real difference between how they looked before and after diving. After diving, Haenyeos are extremely exhausted. It was at this exact moment I found, and captured, their strength and power. During every dive, they fight for their life and I wanted to capture that moment of strength. I wanted to show their beauty to the world.

Do you keep going to Jeju Island today?

I travel down to Jeju as often as I can. There’re still some Haenyeos I want to photograph. And as long as I can work, I will continue to photograph them.

All photos Copyright ⓒ 2015  by Hyung S. Kim

The post The Sea Women of South Korea appeared first on PANTHALASSA.