Sailing Ed. 29 of 100

In strong winds, thousands of Portuguese men o'war are blown onto the coast of NSW, Australia. Rafts of them trapped in a sheltered bay offered me a chance to photograph them. On this attempt I was in the water at sunrise, to catch both the eerie light and the clearer water brought in by high tide. A breeze pushed the animals along like tiny sailing boats, making framing tricky and despite a wetsuit, I didn't manage to avoid stings. This image was a finalist in the NHM/BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards 2014.

Each photograph is printed to order. Please allow up to 2-3 weeks for us to have your order printed, signed and picked up by courier. All Limited Edition prints are hand signed and have a 1 inch (2.5cm) white signature border included in the listed dimensions. All editions are limited to 100 prints, numbered in ascending order and come complete with a certificate of authenticity and a Hahnemühle Art Registry Number.

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I have always had an attraction to the water and the tricks it plays on light for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories are of my brother and I snorkelling on family holidays to France and the Mediterranean Sea. I can clearly remember my first experience of watching shafts of sunlight weave and dance down into the deep blue, carved by the rippling ocean surface.

I bought my first film SLR camera in my teens to try and capture what I loved to see and I used it to shoot the coastlines of my home country of the United Kingdom. It wasn’t long before my curiosity and appetite for shooting the ocean meant I would have to get in and shoot underwater, so I saved and bought a waterproof housing for my camera so I could explore further. As my photography skills grew I needed to travel more to get the images I imagined, so trips abroad to far off countries followed. Now residing in NSW Australia after emigrating from the UK in 2007 I have the worlds biggest playground at my feet, the Pacific Ocean….. And I have truly fallen in love with it.

For me one of the most wondrous parts of any dive is the moment that the water engulfs my mask as my head slips below the surface. I think it’s the suspense of the unknown of what lies beneath, the transitional part of moving from one element to the next that feels so magical and the thought of what alien creatures I might encounter. That is what draws me to taking half over half underwater images. I try to convey to the viewer that majestic feeling in a picture format. It’s maybe the best way I can communicate to a non-diver what it’s all about, to marry a wet and unfamiliar world with a dry and more familiar one.