Today we’re celebrating WORLD OCEANS DAY with you 📸
With our photos we want to show you the beauty of the oceans and its creatures. Underwater photography, and especially life beneath the surface, is and always will be something very special to us - our passion and our fulfilment as a team of underwater photographers!
We believe that many people underestimate the art of underwater photography. This is partly because they don’t know - or perhaps are afraid of - what life beneath the water’s surface has in store. But it’s also because underwater photography depends on so many unpredictable factors. We ourselves love not knowing what awaits us before our next dive. What creatures will swim through our paths, even though we get a hint of what might happen during the briefing before each dive. The excitement builds with every fin stroke, whether the current will make photography difficult and sweep us away or whether the dive will be completely relaxed. Whether the long-awaited blue whale will finally surprise us with a visit or whether the tiny Hairy Shrimp’s hair will stand on end when he encounters our camera.
We love underwater photography because nothing can ever be planned. Often, we have only a few seconds to capture the perfect shot before the subject disappears back into the deep blue or the labyrinth of the reef garden. There’s no time to dwell on the right aperture or shutter speed. That’s why every move and every setting in this environment - which is so unfamiliar to us - has to be just right. That´s the challenge!
Ever since our very first dive, OM SYSTEM has been our loyal and reliable companion and dive buddy. The OM-1 Mark II is actually our tool underwater. Combined with the 90mm macro lens, we capture the bizarre and tiny details of the ocean. Colorful, quirky critters - often just a few millimetres in size. And when the subject is really big - a blue whale can reach up to 30 meters in length - there’s no way around using the 8mm fisheye lens. The best way to capture the giants of the sea and the fairy-tale coral landscapes in all their beauty and vibrant colors.
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ABOUT MELANIE & DAVID BENZ
Web: art-and-water.de/
Instagram: @artandwater_photography
Adventurer and couple. Addicted to diving and traveling we are cruising the blue planet. Whether behind or in front of the camera, our element is water. Remote countries and the depths of the oceans - it is the fascination of the unknown which captivates and boosts us. As photographers and editors we got to know most of the seven seas and felt into love with them. From Papua New Guinea to Raja Ampat, from Japan through Indonesia to the sunny Caribbean we have been visiting the most beautiful dive sites on our blue planet.
Thereby we photographed whale-sharks in the Atlantic and the North Pacific, dived with sharks and dolphins at the wrecks of the South Pacific and portrayed manta rays in the colorful coral gardens of Indonesia and Japan. Finally, we found enchanting mermaids and sirens in the mystical underwater worlds of the Mexican Cenotes. Definitively - our job is the ocean. A place which could not be more beautiful. With the founding of Art & Water Photography in 2010 we realized our dream. More a life-task than a job with lots of engagement and heart for the beauty of our oceans.
