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THANK HEAVENS FOR VANITY
Underwater photography seems such a capricious thing to do. To spend a lot of money on photography kit, cart it around the world and then jump off a boat into the ocean with it, always thinking you can get that elusive shot which no-one else has managed to capture.
There are few female photographers. By and large, women are far too sensible. But, driven by ego as we men are, many of us still do it.
It's pure vanity. But if there is vanity photography, it is superseded by vanity publishing. And it's in this world that most books of underwater photography are sourced.
Just as many underwater photographers will happily forego a fee to see their pictures reproduced in magazines, there is a small elite group who will pay a fortune to see their work gather dust on the remaindered shelf of some bookstore. It would be churlish of us not to support their efforts.
Eyes Into Secret Seas by Jeffrey Rotman has the look of such a project. Stunningly reproduced on the highest quality paper, it would grace anyone's collection of such coffee-table volumes. More than 200 pages of finely crafted colour plates feel lush to the touch.
It's a pity the photographs are fairly ordinary macro shots of regularly observed subjects. It's a collection of extreme close-ups and the vivid spectrum of colours usually found therein. None is much beyond the reach of anyone armed with a modern electronic 35mm camera in a suitable housing, a macro lens and a flashgun, and prepared to travel a little.
Stop! What am I saying? That kit will set you back at least £3000, not counting the endless rolls of film wasted, and for that money you can buy a lot of books.
Well done, Mr Rotman! And well done all you other photographers willing to invest your time and money for our pleasure.
I can imagine long winter evenings poring over this volume with my friends while saying: "I've seen that. I've got a photo of one of those. You get a lot around Hurghada, Sipadan, Bonaire, Porto Fino..." and so on. Then again, if you know a publisher willing to stump up the money, I've got some great shots...
John Bantin
Eyes Into Secret Seas by Jeffrey L Rotman (White Star, 01202 649930). Hardback, 208pp, £29.95
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A PLOP FROM THE SHORE
When I heard that yet another guide was to hit the dive centres and bookshops on diving the Maltese islands, my first reaction was to ask: why? Malta is a mere 26 miles by nine. Do we really need number four in a line of Malta diving guides!
Thinking about it, the answer I came to was - yes. Even with the addition of Peter G Lemon's Guide to Shore Diving the Maltese Islands, there is still a need for a comprehensive guide to all the Maltese dive sites. Not one of the guides so far published has even touched the edge of this iceberg.
My reactions to the latest offering are mixed. When I first scoured the pages I felt that far too much information on the history and background of the islands was included (about 28 pages of it) in what is, after all, a "diving guide". Both Ned Middleton's and Lawson Wood's earlier publications had got the proportions about right.
However, from page 31 on, this book becomes a true guide. I consider the underwater pictures to be of only average quality, but the aerial photographs, three-dimensional dive plans and directions on planning each individual dive are exceptional.
This publication was wholly written by a Brit, so I wanted to know what some of the Maltese diving instructors and dive-centre owners thought of it, and of the accuracy of its dive plans? The answer was a surprising thumbs-up - they loved it!
This is a book written by a diver for those divers who just want to dive the Maltese Islands from the shore. It's a book I can recommend, albeit with those few niggles.
David Oldale
A Guide To Shore Diving The Maltese Islands, by Peter G Lemon (AquaPress, 01702 462466). Softback, 208p. £16.95
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Are you Doing It Right?
I'm not proposing to get into arguing the case for or against the DIR, or Doing It Right, school of diving here. I would only say that, while I think much of what DIR advocates has merit, I don't believe the case for its strictures is anywhere near as black and white as its hard-line proponents would maintain.
With that out of the way, Doing it Right by Jarrod Jablonski provides an excellent explanation of the DIR system and the reasoning behind it. It covers not only equipment configuration but the entire philosophy.
Jablonski is president and founder of Global Underwater Explorers, and his cave-diving exploits have included dives to some four miles from the nearest air source at a depth of more than 90m, so he knows his stuff. My only complaint is that Jablonski tends to oversell DIR. For those readers who are already DIR, selling the system is redundant. For those who are not DIR, repeating the message too many times becomes annoying.
Nevertheless, anyone wanting to extend the limits of their diving will find something of interest here. Skip the hard sell and think about what Jablonski has written. Whether you agree or not, it will make you question the way you dive.
John Liddiard
Doing it Right: The Fundamentals of Better Diving, by Jarrod Jablonski (Global Underwater Explorers, 001 386 454 0820). Softback, 164pp, £17.50
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A dreadful beauty
David Dunsford was already an accomplished scrap-metal merchant and secondhand car dealer when the underwater world of his local canal completed a sort of personal trinity.
His book Let There Be Light is a collection of images gathered during years of scouring the dark waters, a search that began with an unmarked weapon disposed of in error from a nearby bridge.
Dunsford's epiphany came one night when he stumbled upon what he now playfully describes as the "great white shopping trolley".
He had thought for a moment that he was literally under attack, but in the reduced visibility a castor wheel had simply caught him on the ear.
As he recovered from the shock, he was struck again - this time by the seductive charm of the abandoned cart as his torchbeam played upon its cheap chroming. "I was forced to reconsider my very existence up to that moment," Dunsford was to say later.
It was indeed the start of a new career for this dedicated diver, as he set out to capture such quintessential moments on film, concentrating on the underwater experiences offered by the Grand Union Canal that passed his yard.
At a time of pollution, vandalism and sledgehammer coarse-fishing practices, the world of the inland waterway needs all the champions it can get. Like war photographers, those with canal knowledge bring back images that allow a peculiar insight into an otherwise closed, secret world. Nor has Dunsford been content to rest on his laurels with his marvellous, and by now trademark, underwater shopping-trolley images.
This handsomely produced book is packed with a wide range of haunting images, revealing that this sympathetic lens-meister is as comfortable shooting a perambulator or a milk crate as he is a buggy or a bicycle wheel.
And the results are genuinely moving. As Dunsford's friend and yard manager Roger Simonson says in his preface: "If the chord structure of a Beethoven sonata can paint a picture, and the total shading of a picture can sing a song, this book is full of pictures that, by comparison, make the noises from an hydraulic crusher lyrical."
Sam Agen
Let There Be Light by David Dunsford (Oceans Frustrated). Hardback, 64pp, £39.99
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FEELS FAMILIAR
I've been there! That was my reaction on opening the pages of this coffee-table volume. Instead of yet another collection of underwater photographers' art, delectable but unattainable, Top Dive Sites of Australia is actually a very useful guide-book.
This sounds strange only when you realise that its publisher New Holland already publishes a successful series of dive-guides. I can only think that the Australian material did not fit into the publisher's well-tried formula, so it slipped it into the coffee-table pigeonhole instead.
The book covers most of Australia's popular diving destinations, and because it is written by an Australian the commentary has a comfortable Home Counties feel. There is a summary of recommended dive operators at the end of each section, though I was surprised there seemed so little choice in Queensland.
I suspect that the information on that state might be something of a plug for those companies that sponsored Becca Saunders' endeavours. In the short section on photography her partisanship is barely disguised by phrases such as "nothing comes close to the crispness of this film... these are the finest strobes available... the original compact housing and still the best..." I wish it were that simple.
Many of the photographs are technically not that good, yet they often convey better what it might be like to be at a site than the cleverer type of photography would.
So many of us have some sort of connection with Australia that the planes through Singapore (where the book was printed) are full of Brits on their way there. If you are a diver you'll want to get in the water, even if you are ostensibly going to visit Auntie. This book will encourage you to pack your kit. John Bantin
Top Dive Sites of Australia by Becca Saunders (New Holland, 020 7724 7773). Hardback, 160pp, £29.99
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Turks & Caicos on the button
The Lonely Planet dive guide series is now well-established and the number of locations covered continues to expand rapidly. This latest offering covers the British Crown colony of the Turks & Caicos islands in the Caribbean, an area which offers excellent diving opportunities but is perhaps less well-known to British divers.
The guides now have a well-developed format which includes a variety of historical, geographical, travel and practical information as an introduction to the area. Forty-four dive sites are described and divided into six major areas according to the nearest island within the Turks & Caicos group.
The sites are well described and, at least as far as those I have dived myself are concerned, contain plenty of accurate detail. Each description includes a series of icons which summarise the features of the site, and an indication of the experience level required.
The guide also includes a pictorial summary of common species of marine life, dangerous species and a detailed listing of dive centres, liveaboards and accommodation.
The final feature is a substantial piece on conservation, awareness, responsible diving technique and the Turks & Caicos national parks system.
Many popular diving locations around the globe are now taking a much more proactive approach to preserving their natural marine assets, and it is refreshing to see this reflected in this series of dive guides.
This is a well laid-out book which will give you an accurate flavour of what the Turks & Caicos has to offer.
Mark Webster
Diving and Snorkelling Turks & Caicos by Steve Rosenberg, (Lonely Planet , 020 7428 4800). Softback,128pp, £10.99
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FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH
Submarine Researches, by the famous diving pioneer Charles A Deane, was first published in 1835. Now it has been republished, as the second monograph from the Historical Diving Society. It is a limited edition of 750 copies, and is notable in three ways.
To start with, it was the first book ever to be published about diving using the helmet and dress, with air pumped down from the surface. This apparatus, with little modification, was to become the familiar hardhat gear used throughout the world.
Accompanied by extensive notes, Deane describes some of the salvage-diving operations he carried out successfully for the Navy and for commercial and civil-engineering interests. The illustrations are of underwater work, including that on HMS Royal George, in the London docks and on the foundations of Blackfriars Bridge.
The second point of note is that John Bevan writes a fascinating introduction in which he describes Deane's life and his death in depleted circumstances, as well as covering the career of his younger brother John.
Third, there are two absorbing accounts from survivors of the sinking of the Royal George, which went down at Spithead in 1782. Of the 800 men and women on board, only some 150 survived.
Bernard Eaton
Submarine Researches by C A Deane (Historical Diving Society, 01737 249961). Hardback, 86pp, £18
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Gold fever
Londoner Nigel Pickford is the world's leading wreck-researcher. His expertise has already led to the discovery of more than 70 rich wrecks, notably the great finds of Chinese porcelain, on which he worked with the world's most successful treasure diver, Captain Mike Hatcher.
In his latest book, Lost Treasure Ships of the Twentieth Century, Pickford deals with 174 wrecks, some of which are well-known. More intriguingly, he introduces us to gold galore in lesser-known holds.
Divers will spend many happy hours with this well-illustrated book, particularly with the 17 ships into which he goes in great detail. Are there thousands of Klondike gold nuggets still to be picked up from the wreck of the Islander, just off the Canadian shore? Is there gold in the Hampshire, now a controlled site with all diving banned except with an MoD licence? And what about the two tons of gold in the giant Japanese cargo-carrying submarine I52, which has been found by a salvage submersible upright, but 5000m down in mid-Atlantic? Pickford has all the answers.
James P Delgado takes a different line with his book Lost Warships. As befits the Vancouver Maritime Museum's executive director and author of many sea books, he sets off on an archaeological tour of war at sea, starting with Greek war galleys of 1500BC and ancient sea battles in the Mediterranean, and ending with the giant carriers and battleships of World War Two. Delgado's book is well-illustrated, covers most discovered sites and tells the tale in lively prose. Kendall McDonald
Lost Treasure Ships of the 20th Century by Nigel Pickford, (Pavilion Books, 020 7697 7269). Softback,192pp, £14.99
Lost Warships by James P Delgado (Conway Maritime Press, 020 7700 7611). Hardback, 190pp, £25
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BRIEFLY... BRIEFLY... BRIEFLY...
Books land on my desk in clusters these days, among them three updates of New Holland dive guides, now branded as the "Globetrotter" series. The first of seven revised editions this year, they cover The Red Sea (Guy Buckles, 125 sites); The Maldives (Sam Harwood and Rob Bryning, 140) and The Philippines (Jack Jackson, 200).
The format is much as before, with descriptions of individual sites, area maps and colour photographs of underwater scenery and marine life, the latter accompanied by useful information. There is also advice on techniques and equipment, travel tips and guidance on local restaurants and accommodation. Each guide costs £13.99 (New Holland, 020 7724 7773).
Three books in a new series have meanwhile arrived from the BBC. Extraordinary Fish, by British Sea Fishes author Dr Frances Dipper, deals with underwater creatures that have evolved weird shapes to help them survive in a competitive world - fish that breathe air, are scaleless or armour-plated, that can live on land and climb trees, or whose fins have developed into bizarre weapons.
Michael Bright, a senior producer with the Natural History Unit, has written no fewer than 55 books. His latest, Dolphins, looks at current research into a creature that endears itself to people but has also been known to kill them - albeit in self-defence. The book reveals how mothers and babies provide a stable focus while males can form "bully boy" gangs and terrorise the community.
Completing the BBC trio, Killer Whales by zoologist-broadcaster Mark Carwardine deals with the complex, endearing and enigmatic side of creatures with a fearsome, somewhat misleading, reputation as indiscriminate killers. Highly efficient predators, they use their remarkable co-operative strategies to hunt a wide variety of prey, from squid to sea-birds to sea-lions and dolphins, but seem very careful not to harm people! Each of these titles costs £7.99 (BBC Worldwide, 020 8433 2000).
Finally, another series of three books has arrived from Michael Aw, a photo-journalist based in Australia. Tropical Reef Fishes, Tropical Reef Life and Staghorn Coral are neat, descriptive little volumes printed in colour, handy to carry and suitable to be read in one go or to provide easy reference. They cost US $15. There is also an illustrated log-book called Divelog of My Underwater Adventures, which costs $10. (OceaNEnvironment, www.OceaNEnvironment.com.au)
Bernard Eaton
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