RPS eJournal Benelux Chapter volume 15 Summer 2019 by Royal Photographic Society

VOLUME 15 / SUMMER 2019

WWW.RPS.ORG

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

VIEW FROM THE RPS BENELUX CHAPTER ORGANISERS

Chapter meetings and print exhibitions

The Royal Photographic Society Benelux Chapter Copyright The copyright of photographs and text in this eJournal belong to the author of the article of which they form part, unless otherwise indicated

Time is going quickly as we are already in May and this is the second issue of our eJournal this year. We held our Benelux Chapter’s Annual General Meeting in February and had a very interesting and successful “creative in camera workshop” weekend with Martin Addison FRPS, in early May in Zierikzee. The first showing of the 2019 chapter travelling print exhibition was held in Zoetermeer earlier this year and is currently showing at the Dirksland Hospital, Goeree-Overflakkee, from May 2nd to June 27th. The exhibition will be coming to Brussels later this year, however we are currently looking for additional exhibition venues. A number of Chapter meetings will still be held in 2019 which we hope you will find to be interesting and will want to attend: 10 July: a special Chapter meeting will be held at the Royal Academy of Arts, Den Haag, from 15.00 to 18.00 where we will have the opportunity to view an exhibition of photography students. We will be escorted round the exhibition by some of the students and then have a short lecture from their head of photography, Rob Honstra, FRPS. Rob will explain to us how to appreciate contemporary work, which is often very different to the style of work we ourselves produce. 6 October: We will have another super photographer over from the UK - Leigh Preston FRPS, for a mono workshop. A close-up and macro photography workshop will be held in Spring 2020.

Cover photo Erwin Olaf - Royal Blood | Di †1997 Editor eJournal Armando Jongejan Proof reading Dawn Black Webmaster André Meyer-Vitali

Liability Disclaimer The author of an article is responsible and liable for all content, text and images provided by them. Neither the RPS Benelux Chapter nor the editor is responsible or liable for any content therein

Photo Requirements 2000 pix long side and quality 8 no watermark or text in the photo and no borders around the photo

Please support our activities and book these dates in your agenda, so you don’t double book yourself and miss out on some great meetings. The chapter’s website remains an important source of information about the chapter and its activities. Reading the two exceptional articles on Erwin Olaf and Lucia Sekerková Bláhová in this eJournal made me realise we should all step beyond the acceptable and push our own photographic boundaries. Think the unthinkable and shoot to tell the story. All the issues of our chapter eJournal, which is published four times a year by our Newsletter Editor, Armando Jongejan, can be directly viewed and downloaded from the RPS-website. Remember that this is your Journal, so please provide articles and photos that are of interest to chapter members along with information about upcoming events in the Benelux. If you have any questions, please do come back to us.

Janet Haines and Richard Sylvester RPS Benelux Chapter joint organisers

4 IN THIS ISSUE - SUMMER 2019

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VIEW FROM THE RPS BENELUX CHAPTER ORGANISERS Janet Haines FIPF ARPS and Richard Sylvester LRPS

IN THIS ISSUE

VISITING THE BIGGEST ‘RETROSPECTIVE TO DATE’ EXHIBITION OF ERWIN OLAF Armando Jongejan FRPS

14 JOINING A CLUB PHOTOGRAPHICA MEETING Jeroen Dorrestein LRPS 16 WOMEN SELLING HOPE Lucia Sekerková Bláhová 28 DUTCH MASTERS - PHOTO FESTIVAL Armando Jongejan FRPS

30 36

30 CREATIVE IN CAMERA WEEKEND WORKSHOP WITH MARTIN ADDISON Carol Olerud ARPS 36 THE UNDERWATER WORLD: TAKING PICTURES UNDER THE WATER SURFACE Jana Tenava

VISITING THE BIGGEST ‘RETROSPECTIVE TO DATE’ EXHIBITION OF ERWIN OLAF text by Armando Jongejan FRPS

What I want to show most of all is a perfect world with a crack in it. I want to make the picture seductive enough to draw people into the narrative, and then deal the blow. Erwin Olaf

A photo with a lot of pros and cons During the eighties I saw the first photo by Erwin Olaf (1959) in the Dutch Photo Magazine ‘FOCUS’. It was different, a homo erotic photograph of a naked man with a bottle of champagne between his legs and the champagne spraying out of the bottle. It was at that time a photo with a lot of pros and cons. A few years later his photobook Chessmen was published, which contained 32 photos. Olaf portrayed the game of chess in a series of provocative images, featuring visible genitals, small halfnaked people with kinky attributes, and extremely fat women in bondage outfits. The series did not go unnoticed. He received criticism for it, but conversely, also the Young European Photographers Prize. In 1991 I visited an Erwin Olaf photo exhibition in Gallery Steltman in Amsterdam and in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Olaf made perfect photos of all kind of objects made by the Czech architect and designer Bořek Šípek (1949 - 2016). This series was a combination of art and his journalistic background. The furniture, glass and silver objects of Šípek were presented in the environment of gypsies in Slovakia. Visiting exhibitions is valuable - it can inspire you. It inspires me. Still, after so many years Olaf's photos are iconic as are the objects made by Šípek. And so I went to see Olaf's double exhibition, a ‘Retrospective to Date’ in Gemeentemuseum Den Haag and The Hague Museum of Photography. I was impressed with the high quality and the stories told.

Â© Erwin Olaf - Palm Springs - The Family Visit - Portrait #1 (The Niece) - 2018 Courtesy Hamiltons Gallery, London / Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York

‘RETROSPECTIVE TO DATE’ EXHIBITION OF ERWIN OLAF | 16-2 / 16-6 2019 text Gemeente Museum Den Haag and photos published with permission of Erwin Olaf Journalistic training Erwin Olaf was studying journalism in Utrecht in the 1980s when, having noticed that he was unhappy, one of his lecturers pressed a camera into his hands. ‘I loved the thing right from the word go,’ says Olaf, ‘the weight, the cool metal in my hand. It felt so natural. And when I took my first photographs, I knew I had found my calling.’ Olaf began taking journalistic photographs of theatre performances, worked for progressive magazines and volunteered for COC Nederland (which represents LGBTI interests). In his early work Olaf often depicted the human body quite graphically, breaching the restrictions on sexuality, the body and gender. He describes himself at that time as an angry adolescent, though his taboo-breaking work was highly significant in terms of visual freedom in the Netherlands.

Photographs of the Dutch Royal Family A very special addition to the double exhibition are Erwin Olaf’s photographs of the Dutch royal family. As part of the exhibition at the Gemeentemuseum he will bring together many of the photographs that the Government Information Service commissioned him to take of the royal family. ‘I’m proud of the royal family,’ says Olaf, ‘because they are a binding factor in a democracy that is sometimes very divided. I’m happy to be able to contribute to that.’

Palm Springs: final part of a triptych Erwin Olaf’s most recent series, Palm Springs (2018), is exhibited for the first time at the exhibition in the Gemeentemuseum. It is part of a triptych about cities undergoing change, the other two parts being Berlin (2012) and Shanghai (2017). The Berlin series was produced in a period when dark clouds were gathering above Europe. It highlights Olaf’s concerns about freedom of expression and democracy, and the transfer of power from an older to a new generation. Shanghai is a hypermodern metropolis in China with a population of 24 million. The series made in this city explores what happens to the individual in an environment like this. In Palm Springs, Olaf again focuses on topical issues. One of the key themes is climate change, though at the same time the images also recall the America of the 1960s. In a beautiful series of portraits, landscapes – this was the first time Olaf had photographed landscapes – still lifes and filmic scenes he refers to issues like teenage pregnancy, discrimination, religious abuses and polarisation. The series tells the story of people withdrawing into gated communities as reality invades their paradise. Successful artist The double exhibition shows how Erwin Olaf has developed from angry provocateur to one of the Netherland’s most famous and popular photographers. His work now features in the collections and exhibitions of museums the world over, including China, Russia, The United States of America and Brazil. In 2008 The Hague Museum of Photography showed his Rain, Hope, Grief and Fall series. In 2011 he won the prestigious Johannes Vermeer Prize, and in 2018 the Rijksmuseum purchased almost 500 photographs and videos by Erwin Olaf. If you are able to visit The Hague before 16th June, visit these exhibitions too! Publication: ERWIN OLAF – I AM If you missed the exhibitions, there is published a major photobook, Erwin Olaf – I Am. Containing no fewer than 240 photographs, from his early series like Chessmen and Blacks, right through to his most recent series shot in 2018 in Palm Springs. The publication is available in four languages. Hannibal Publishing published the Dutch and French editions, Aperture the English edition and Koenig Books the German edition.

Â© Erwin Olaf - Shanghai - Huai Hai 116 - Portrait #2 - 2017 Courtesy Hamiltons Gallery, London / Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York

ÂŠ Erwin Olaf - Berlin - Freimaurer Loge Dahlem - 22nd of April 2012 Courtesy Hamiltons Gallery, London / Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York

Â© Erwin Olaf - Selfportrait - I Wish, I Am , I Will Be - 2009

Â© Erwin Olaf - Hope - Portrait #5

Â© Erwin Olaf - Palm Springs, 2018 - American Dream - Self-Portrait with Alex

Â© Erwin Olaf - Palm Springs, 2018 - The Kite

JOINING A CLUB PHOTOGRAPHICA MEETING text and photos by Jeroen Dorrestein LRPS You will not find anything digital On a very windy and rainy Sunday morning in March I found myself heading for Hilversum for the annual “Fotografica-beurs”. I was not quite sure what to expect, I had just heard it was an interesting event and that is good enough for me!

The event is organised by the Club Photographica. Their purpose is to encourage the collection and use of old photography and film equipment as well as maintaining and exchanging technical proficiency in the use of this old technology. To put it slightly differently, you will not find anything digital, or even remotely digital at this event! It is all analogue; real proper film, or even glass plate cameras. For me it was a bit of a trip down memory lane. I started photography when I was about 14 years old when one of my elder sisters had a fiancee who was a keen photographer. He taught me a lot and handed down a lot of his equipment, including a complete dark room set! I used my Dad’s old camera, a Zeiss Ikon which I still have today. It's the only old camera I still

have. All subsequent cameras got bought and sold on or given away over the years so walking around this event is very much a trip down memory lane. It was a very enjoyable two hours This event was held at the Dudok in Hilversum, essentially a sports hall with dozens and dozens

of market stalls. Just about any type of camera you can think of (as long as it is not digital) is on show along with lots of other photography gear, such as light meters, flashlight, filters etc. There are quite a lot of books and prints too. It took me about two hours to stroll around all market stalls, having a few chats here and there. I spent quite some time with a gentleman who had brought a large collection of (night) binoculars. The whole event has a very relaxed atmosphere. This is a club event and lots of people seem to know each other. In all it was a very enjoyable two hours, roaming around, looking at and discussing old photography gear.

See fotografica.nl for more information. Next meeting:

19 November 2019

Address:

Dudok Arena, Arena 303 in Hilversum

WOMEN SELLING HOPE text and photos by Lucia Sekerková Bláhová Everyday life and culture of Wallachian Roma people I started this during my studies at Tomas Bata University in 2013 for my Bachelor’s project. It was long term project because at the beginning I had to manage it at my own expense. Later in 2016, I received financial support from my University to continue. From that moment I could be there more often, almost every month. I decided to collaborate with Slovak ethnologist, Ivana Šusterová. Her studies focus on everyday life and culture of Wallachian Roma people so I could learn more about their culture and everyday life in general and not just about the “vrajitoare” phenomenon in Romania. We also decided to make a fusion between photographic work and an ethnological study, link science with art into a visually attractive book and try to popularise this topic for the general

public. There are other reasons for choosing the topic: Roma photography has a long tradition in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, certainly you will know the name Josef Koudelka. My Christian family background also had an influence Most of them captured the Roma from socially excluded sites. You can see black and white pictures of people who live below the poverty line but still find some dignity and pleasure in their lives. The Vlach Roma community is smaller than other groups of Roma and also the witchcraft or fortune telling is really rare in the Vlach Roma community in Slovakia, so I was totally fascinated by how much it was still alive in Romania. My Christian family background also had an influence on my choice of topic, as I was interested in the strange split between Christianity and paganism in this witch world.

A feeling of a performance I am sure the collaboration with Ivana was to my advantage because the Roma are mainly seen as a closed community which is hard to penetrate. This group has characteristic signs such as traditional norms, specific forms of behaviour, own community rules and laws. I think that people should know it and respect it before they come there and want something from them. Ivana also speaks a little of their native Roma language and they were very surprised by that - in a positive sense. For example, we were able to start our visit informally with small talk about clothes. I definitely can say that It opened the door to speak to them in a more familiar way. And of course, her research there had a strong influence on my photographic approach when I could understand this phenomenon deeper

and be focused on the story behind the picture. Such as the picture of two young girls who are picking flowers in the yard behind their house in the middle of the capital city. It shows disparity between the reality which we witnessed and what they actually told us during the interview. Mostly, women said they pick flowers in secret places, always in wild nature, far away from civilisation, usually during the sunrise. The more interviews we had with them, the more we got a feeling of a performance for their clients or of the competition between the women. The competition between women was the biggest problem for our work at the beginning because every woman wanted be the only one to be in the book. Some women used to ask us if we could mentioned them in our book as the most powerful witches in Romania. We couldn’t promise that and that was a problem for them; we needed very good negotiation skills.

Behind this is the way their work has been changed by the advent of the Internet. Now they have to face increasing competition. Sandra, one of the witches I photographed, told us: “In the past the processes were more simple. Today every witch wants to have something special, typical only for her so they started to add new things to be more interesting for clients. They complicate the process of work. They would like to be as a big company which is celebrated for its greatness. I can also buy my own golden crown and be self-proclaimed queen of magic. In these times you can be anything you want to be. It depends on your imagination. Authenticity can be gained through simplicity and humility and you need to have a big heart.”

There are many websites in Romania with small advertising banners for each of them, where you can find their phone numbers and can arrange a meeting. They were more or less open to sharing, it depended on each individual’s motivation. One witch accepted our visit in her house but she didn’t want to speak with us when we arrived. She wanted $330 for the interview, still emphasising her status as famous celebrity who need any advertising from children like us. After we refused to pay her, she kicked us out from her house. It was my single negative experience, most of them are very kind and hospitable women. We realised that we had to be able to convince them and offer them something other than money. Some of them didn’t want to cooperate without money, but sometimes you just need a time to impress. We just explained that we had a really serious interest in their traditions and culture and we would like to make a book about them. We were trying to adapt to their world as much as we could so most of the time we wore traditional long Roma skirts.

It was hard work sometimes because the women were trying to manipulate us into the client role for the purposes of self-promotion on social networks – broadcasting live videos of our visits. They realised very well the fact that it can be a good way to discover new clients. I was feeling like I was their private photographer for their PR on social networks, especially when I photographed rituals where there were more women at the same time who wanted me to take a portrait. Each of them screamed at me in same time: “Hey you, come here! I am doing special ritual right here, take a picture of me.” So it was hard to focus on capturing “my own moments”. Later, I realised that I should also use these stylised portraits of women in my work because it perfectly fits them. Before I went there for the first time I searched the internet to get as much information about this

phenomenon as possible. There were the same women in the most of pictures in foreign articles and the way they looked in pictures was always very similar. The emphasis was on the tradition of their craft, women had traditional clothes and were captured at night during a ritual without using any flash light. These pictures looked gorgeous to me because it generates a very strong feeling of some magic and of something old and traditional. When I was there and watched my first ritual I was so surprised by the enormous use of the phones during the ritual. It was also common for women to have their phones in their hand, taking a selfie picture during or after the rituals. I love this strange split between the old and the new world, as well as between magic and internet. So I focused on their self-presentation and the presentation of their work and the modernisation of this phenomenon in my project. Every single woman had their own way of presenting them self. One of them wanted to pose as a modern witch and when I photographed her it was important to her to have a computer at the table because it indicates that she is the modern one.

Photobook is also available

Original title

Ženy predávajúce nádej (Women selling hope)

Photography

Lucia Sekerková Bláhová

Ethnologist

Ivana Šusterová

Publisher

Nakladatelství DOST

Binding

Hardback

ISBN

9788087407233

Extent

240 pages

Trim

170mm x 230mm

Language

Slovakian

Published

2018

A signed copy of the photobook is available. Price € 25,00 plus packaging and shipping.

More information: sekerkov.lucia@gmail.com Website: www.sekerkovalucia.cz

DUTCH MASTERS & MARVELOUS MISFITS - WITH ARMANDO JONGEJAN FRPS source www.fotofestivalnaarden.nl and text by Armando Jongejan FRPS Marvelous misfits The 16thedition of FotoFestival Naarden will take place from Saturday, May 25thto Sunday, June 30th 2019. Curators are photographer Koos Breukel and photo historian and author Hedy van Erp. Dutch Masters & Marvelous Misfits has been made with the intention to praise and include the misfit. The misfits presented at the FotoFestival are greater masters than they are given credit for – they are marvelous misfits.

It tells the tales of our best and worst moments Dutch Masters and misfits are much more alike than one would think. Misfits are greater masters than they are given credit for – they are marvelous misfits. Fotofestival Naarden 2019 shows painted work of those who neatly fit within the realms of labels and norms of Dutch Masters, alongside artwork and photography by those who don’t. Dutch Masters & Marvelous Misfits tells the stories of people and their landscapes, the latter in the sense of sceneries and thoughts. It tells the tales of our best and worst moments, from self-loathing to self-love, from rebellion to naivety, and the marvelous in-between. There is work to be seen in, among others, the Grote Kerk, the military underground Bastions, Bij Andreas and the Comenius Museum. These locations include work by Stephan Vanfleteren, Robin de Puy, Koos Breukel, Paul Blanca, Otto Snoek, Hans de Kort, Eddy van Wessel and Armando Jongejan FRPS.

Opening times Photo Festival Monday to Thursday: 11.00 – 17.00 Friday to Sunday & Ascension Day and Pentecost Monday: 10.00 – 18.00

Ticket sales Except online, you can also buy entrance tickets for FotoFestival Naarden at the Festival Office, located at the Utrechtse Poort, Ruijsdaelplein in Naarden-Vesting, next to the Gele Loods (Yellow Warehouse). You cannot buy tickets at the exhibition venues! Entrance ticket for all eight locations € 19.50

Valid for the entire period Your ticket is valid for the entire festival, you can visit each site once. You do not need to see all the exhibits in one day, you can view the different locations on different days.

Practical information in English https://www.fotofestivalnaarden.nl/en/bezoekersinfo/praktisch/

CREATIVE IN CAMERA WEEKEND WORKSHOP WITH MARTIN ADDISON FRPS text by Carol Olerud ARPS Only Six Leaving the workshop after two intense days of learning, listening, doing, laughing and enjoying myself, these words echoed around my head. Only Six! We want everyone to send in six images of the whole weekend, to display on the RPS Benelux Chapter website, Creative in Camera workshop given by Martin Addison FRPS. Six! I can’t supply just six images of a whole weekend, when I actually took over 1100 photos! Mission impossible. My solution was to create six panels and squeeze in as many photos as I could. Not really smart. But, this weekend was so successful and everyone was very enthusiastic. We saw fantastic images by our Coach Martin, he described perfectly, how to go about seeing pictures. Look at unlikely places, go for abstract, use negative space and explore different viewpoints. This was just the morning of the first day! After every learning session we put practice to work, see what we could come up with. This repeated four times, with lunch breaks, dinner and a night in a B&B or small hotel. Intense, but incredibly useful! Camera movement was my favorite: panning in the street, zooming in & out with movement – use the camera not the lens! Spiral and random movement, and of course long exposures. Sunday 10am start, with multiple exposures in camera… Something I hadn’t done since I used slide

film! Circular, overlay a texture, mirror or ten exposures or more in camera in one image. This was so much fun. All the participants of the workshop got very creative and had fun and laughs as we tried the various methods. Holding your camera upside down and taking a photo was the most challenging of all! At lunchtime, discussions continued while the Dutchies showed their true colours, with ‘uitsmijters’ and ‘broodje-kroket’ as delicatessens, as well as ‘tosti’s’, salads or soups for the less daring. We had an excellent location at Wendy’s café near the bridge at Zierikzee - Netherlands. We stayed close by the café The afternoon was spent on artistic focusing. Shallow depth of field, bokeh, lensless and out of focus. Techniques that give a very arty feel to your images. We stayed close by the

café and bridge for this exercise, the previous times we went back into town, though hardly left the carpark! Thanks so much for an excellent weekend, Janet Haines ARPS for organizing, Martin Addison FRPS for the workshop and all the active members

Â© Carol Olerud ARPS Impression of the two days workshop in Zierikzee On the right: thanks to Martin Addison FRPS by Kym Bybjerg LRPS

THE UNDERWATER WORLD: TAKING PICTURES UNDER THE WATER SURFACE text and photos by Jana Teneva The underwater world It all started when a good friend of mine showed me his underwater certification video from the Red Sea. It looked so peaceful, colourful and out-of-this-world at the same time. I was hooked. It was 2004, so few months later I did two discover scuba-dives in Egypt and afterwards in Martinique, the French Caribbean. I ended up taking my diving certificate (PADI Open water level) in Brazil in November 2005. Leave nothing but bubbles My diving instructor Diego, in the beautiful wild island of Fernando de Noronha, loved to repeat that

the ocean is not an aquarium, so there is no guarantee that you are going to see turtles or rays or dolphins. He was absolutely right of course but it is actually better than an aquarium! Because you never know who is going to pass by you underwater and which incredible creature you are going to be lucky enough to meet or spot or even to miss (due to a perfect camouflage). I started diving once an year, during my warm-water vacations. However I was so charmed by the marine world that I was also very eager to bring all those colours, exotic shapes and unusual sea inhabitants above the water; to capture and share this secret world with friends, family and everyone not from the diving community.

Following the motto “Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but bubbles”, I started taking underwater pictures. One of the first underwater housings for the compact Sony had come onto the market and was a very good and practical set, back in 2005. However believe me, it was not an easy

task. Not only do you have to handle yourself and your heavy equipment, there are always additional conditions to take into account be it water current, bad visibility, speedy fish or octopuses, who simply get scared quickly and disappear back into their holes. It must have taken me about 30 dives and few years before I got really stable, more knowledgeable

and also a bit picky about how deep (or not) to dive. You see, you lose colour with depth: after 5m the colour red is absorbed, then orange at 10m and yellow at 20m; while green and blue are gone at 30m and 60m respectively. The colours disappear underwater in the same order as they appear in the colour spectrum. While some divers are excited to go deep diving for the thrill, I always check

ÂŠ Jana Teneva - school of barracudas around SailRock - Thailand

that its not too deep, as on a sunny day one may get wonderful light and colours (for underwater photography and exploration) even up to 12-15m depth. Fantastic sceneries One amazing location for this are the islands of Les Saintes, part of the archipel Guadeloupe in the French Caribbean. Sponges, turtles, crabs and barracudas are just a small part of the usual suspects, even between 5m to 12m one may experience fantastic sceneries. In the past years I have been

lucky to be able to dive and to take pictures with compact cameras, SLR with huge strobe and afterwards moved to handier cameras with raw-format functionalities and one external flash.

What else have I discovered so far? A few interesting facts: the Mediterranean sea offers some of the most crystal clear waters with fabulous dark blue colours. The underwater life in some marine parks around Sardinia is simply mind-blowing. My favourite is the marine park of Tavolara and Capo Cado Cavallo. However, the water is quite fresh (unless you go in September) and you need even heavier equipment. The warm-water diving spots such as the Caribbean, Great Barrier reef or the huge archipelago of the Philippines offer breathtaking colours of fauna and flora, but the visibility depends on the tides and one may never get as clear water as in good old Europe. Of course one may also wonder how healthy is the diving sport for the marine ecosystem, how disturbing or even damaging unexperienced divers may be. This is a topic that is really close to my

ÂŠ Jana Teneva - Sardinia Nudibranch

heart together with global warming and bleaching of the corals. Along with my fellow divers and dive masters, as well as admiring the underwater beauty, I have also been collecting garbage such as fishing nets, empty bottles and even lost t-shirts, which were stuck on sponges or corals. After an amazing dive in a not too frequented dive-spot next to Moalboal, Cebu, Philippines, I even took a break from diving for 2 years - not because I didn't like this sport anymore, but because I saw what a perfect underwater garden of healthy corals can and should look like. The image will be forever in

my head, together with memories from less healthy places like the bleached out coral ground in the Maldives with just few colourful parrot and butterfly fish swimming around. Seeing the best looking Page 38 | ÂŠ Jana Teneva - Maldives Blue and sergeant major fishes

and worst looking ecosystems makes one realise what is at stake. The oceans and seas are not only our vacation destinations and seafood-tanks, they are incredible and indispensable part of our home planet, Earth. My underwater photography represents my personal contribution to conservation photography by trying to raise awareness by sharing not only the beauty but also the injured spots of the beautiful underwater world. If you want some more inspiration and really breathtaking encounters feel free to follow Paul Nicklen and Christina Mittermeier on instagram. They not only capture the beauty but also fight for more protection of this fragile and magic environment via their foundation Sealegacy.

Restrain yourself from touching And last but not least maybe the most important rule to remember when snorkelling, diving or just swimming: the more beautiful, colourful or weird-looking a creature is/looks like underwater, the bigger the chance is it is dangerous or poisonous, so restrain yourself from touching, poking or stroking it. For the rest, next time you put your head under the water’s surface, simply enjoy this

amazing world! Page 41 | © Jana Teneva - yellow sponges and crab called "Eiffel tour" in les Saintes - Guadeloupe Page 42 | © Jana Teneva - Maldives blue and sergeant major fishes