Underwater photography - How it all beganUnderwater photography -  How it all began 

How it all began with a naturalist with a fascination for molluscs and a mighty explosion.

Tim Barlass

Images throughout the Ocean Photographer of the Year exhibition transport us to impossible depths to discover alien creatures in intimate detail, often revealed in fantastical colours.

Such is the legacy of the pioneers of underwater photography in the mid and late-nineteenth century when the first murky pictures were obtained in a few metres of water.  

The first underwater image is credited to William Thompson in Dorset, UK. The year is 1856. His technique involved coating a plate with light-sensitive collodion (a syrupy solution of nitrocellulose), sensitizing it in a silver nitrate bath, exposing it in the camera, and then immediately developing it while it was still wet. 

The Dorset Echo reports of the early attempt made in Weymouth Bay. “Thompson and his friend Kenyon, having rowed out a sufficient distance from the beach, lowered the box into 18 feet of water. When he was sure that the apparatus was standing upright on the bottom, he pulled the string that raised the hinged shutter.

“Thompson made two attempts that day,” the newspaper reports. “For the first he allowed an exposure time of five minutes but found that the plate having been developed registered nothing. For his second attempt he doubled the exposure time. Although by then the light had deteriorated, he obtained a reasonable satisfactory negative, from which he made a print on which it was possible faintly to discern the outlines of boulders and seaweed. Water had leaked into the camera but this, Thompson was pleased to see, had not seriously affected the quality of the picture.”

French biologist and photographer Louis Boutan is believed to be the first to capture underwater images when both subject and photographer were submerged.

The Frenchman, a naturalist with a fascination for molluscs, had links to Australia: he was instrumental in organising the French exhibit at the Melbourne International Exhibition in 1880 and used his time for travel and to hunt for new species.

Nineteen years later, Boutan and colleague Emil Racoviță, a biologist and oceanographer, created this above image, taken in the south of France. In it, Racoviță holds up a sign with the words “Underwater Photography” written in French.

Boutan described his early photography in the Mediterranean at Banyuls-sur-Mer, southern France, in an article entitled Submarine Photography in The Century Magazine and published a book 'La photographie sous-marine et les progrès de la photographie' in 1900.

One of the most comprehensive articles on Boutan and his work is written by Liz Publika and appears in the website artpublika.com

As she notes, “On a moonless August night in 1899, Louis Boutan lowered his massive photography apparatus to a depth of 165 feet and focused the camera on a sign that read: “Photographie Sous-Marine.” It took an hour to haul the equipment back on board which, altogether, weighed over a 1000 pounds. But the effort was well worth it. The photography pioneer succeeded at giving humanity its first real look at a world it had never previously seen.”  

It would be close to 30 years before the underwater world was captured in colour.

The National Geographic magazine credits Canadian-American marine biologist William Harding Longley with the milestone, noting that Longley’s desire to photograph reef fish off Key West, Florida neatly coincided with the wishes of the magazine’s editor and then president of the National Geographic Society, Gilbert H. Grosvenor. 

The national Geographic magazine reports: “Grosvenor, intending to keep the magazine in the photographic forefront wanted to make and publish the first color photographs to be taken beneath the sea,” according to an article on the magazine’s archive.

When Longley returned to Florida in the summer of 1926, a man from National Geographic accompanied him.  He was Charles Martin, the first head of National Geographic's newly established photo lab.  Martin knew his chemistry and decided to use highly explosive magnesium flash powder to supplement natural light. But instead of using a pinch, as would have been used on land, Longley and Martin used a pound – at one time.

As National Geographic reports, “Longley moved about beneath the surface of the water, dragging a jury-rigged raft, supporting a battery, a reflecting hood, and the pound of flash powder. Martin and other assistants stayed well away in dories.

“Down beneath the waves, Longley would see a fish. Then, buffeted by the swell and using both his hands and knees to steady the bulky camera, he would focus and reach for the shutter, which was wired to the battery on the raft and from the battery to the powder.

“When the electrical impulse from the shutter ignited the powder, the result was kaboom! The enormous explosion, equal to the light of 2,400 flashbulbs, illuminated the sea down to 15 feet (4.6 meters)."

“It was very dangerous; once Longley was seriously burned when a bit of the powder flashed prematurely. He was laid up for six days.”  

But it worked. When later developed, the plates revealed unmistakable images: a hogfish, some gray snappers, a school of French grunts, a parrotfish. Longley's article, Life on a Coral Reef, in the January 1927 issue of National Geographic, revealed the underwater world to the public in glorious colour.

The next milestone was in 1957 with the Calypso-Phot camera designed by Belgian inventor Jean de Wouters and promoted by Jacques-Yves Cousteau, French inventor of open circuit scuba, pioneer diver, author, film-maker and marine researcher. 

It was first released in Australia in 1963 and featured a maximum 1/1000 second shutter speed. A similar version is later produced by Nikon as the Nikonos with a maximum 1/500-second shutter speed which became the best-selling underwater camera series.

It was a year earlier in 1956 that Australia’s most famous underwater photographers Ron and Valerie Taylor started diving, influenced by Cousteau. The conservationist, photographer, and filmmaker, with her husband Ron Taylor made documentaries about sharks, and filmed sequences for films including Jaws.

Taylor worked as an underwater photographer, with some of her work also appearing in National Geographic magazine. In 1973, some macro images of coral and invertebrates on the Great Barrier Reef were featured on its front cover.

No story about underwater photography would be complete without mention of Valerie Taylor. 

The legacy of these early pioneers of underwater photography is evident through the diversity of images on show at the museum at the Ocean Photographer of the Year exhibition.

Director and CEO of the museum, Ms Daryl Karp said: 'The stories behind these photographs are as compelling as the visuals themselves - they challenge us to see the ocean not just as a place of wonder, but as a world in need of care.'

The exhibition runs until May 2026.