Three Life-Changing Injuries, One Ocean Photography Mission

Hi and thanks so much for stopping by. Wow, if anyone would ever have told me that I could take a good photograph when I first started photography back in 1997, I would never believed you. But here I am after being smashed into 19 pieces after two road traffic accidents, the author of the 2nd Best Selling eBook and 6th Best Selling Book in the World on Underwater Photography, and I have helped thousands of guests worldwide to move off Auto Mode with confidence. I am more determined than ever to help beginners believe and give them the confidence that they can create beautiful images too with smaller cameras like compact cameras, smartphones and Go Pros.

My story began out of a quest to help marine life through conservation trips after falling in love with whale sharks whilst I was in hospital and reading Carl Safina's book "Song for the Blue Ocean" which was a story of overfishing. I started with the Shark Research Institute joining them on overseas education trips, followed by volunteering for the Shark Trust, giving talks at Sealife Centres and helping them to launch shark conservation campaigns with the late Peter Benchley (author of JAWS) and the late Deputy Prime Minster John Prescott, and created REEF's (the Reef Environmental Field Foundation) first ever field station in Latin America. This was with Vallarta Adventures in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where I was living and I'm super proud that it is still going! I've funded myself to go undercover at a shark and manta ray fishing market to help collect data to help Manta Rays get protection through the CITES 2013 Convention in Bangkok which was a success thanks to the incredible organisations such as The Manta Trust, PADI Aware and the work of Aquatic Alliance at the time.

I pioneered and launched the first ever dedicated courses for beginners with compact cameras back in 2005 with Emperor Divers, and launched PADI's Digital Underwater Photography Speciality in Egypt in February 2006. I was the first person to gain a Distinction with the Royal Photographic Society in 2007 using both a compact camera and a Digital SLR system. The compact camera wasn't manual either!

I feel really honoured to have won the BSAC Travel Photographer of the Year 2009, Book of the Year in the Dive Industry at London Excel in 2010, Two Bronze Medals with Underwater Photography.com, been Highly Commended in the British Society of Underwater Photographers 2018 and Runner-Up at the British Photography Awards 2020. Why don't I enter more competitions? I'm really shy about entering them and just prefer to spend my time helping beginners to gain confidence and see them win prizes and do well instead.

I have written articles on underwater photography for The Sunday Times, Thai Airlines Magazine, Sport Diver Magazine, DIVE, The Travellers' Times, Guild of Photographers amongst others and am currently helping Waterpixels, a dedicated Underwater Photography Online Community as their Smaller Systems Specialist.

After studio work you'll always find me picking up litter with Nemo my studio pup along local beaches and during the summer months collecting litter underwater when a busy day has finished. I love chatting to visitors at the studio and promoting all of the different conservation organisations such as the Marine Conservation Society, British Divers Marine Life Rescue, The Cornish Seal Group Research Trust, The Shark Trust, Biteback, Project Seagrass, Surfers Against Sewage and REEF amongst many others who work tirelessly to help our seas as well as showing them what treasures can be found on our beaches.

Thanks so much for reading this, it's a very long story but hope that it will inspire you in some way.

Maria x

ps Can you believe that Stacey Soloman who I was asked to photograph when she learnt how to dive invited me to Richard Branson's Necker Island? I still can't believe it either.