My journey into diving and underwater photography began at 15, when a local dive club hosted a Discover Scuba session in our local pool. I had always been fascinated by the underwater world, and my bedroom was filled with aquariums and books on ocean exploration, but I was unprepared for how instantly scuba diving would captivate me.
The thrill of breathing underwater was soon followed by the challenge of underwater photography after a dive buddy lent me his camera. I was hooked.
Trying to capture an image of the marine world sparked an obsession that grew with every roll of film, eventually inspiring the photographs that shaped Beneath Irish Seas.
People often ask if it’s cold underwater, but thanks to drysuits and modern equipment you rarely feel it, even in winter. Diving can be demanding though. Shifting weather and sea conditions or poor underwater visibility often make photography challenging, but that’s part of the thrill of it.
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Beneath the surface lie kelp forests and reefs bursting with colour, sunlit waters and playful seals. Every dive offers encounters with extraordinarily marine life.
I’ve dived all over the world, but capturing moments in our own waters for Beneath Irish Seas has been a lifelong pleasure, an opportunity to show just how vibrant and remarkable our coastline is.
We put a basking shark on the book’s cover to symbolise how our oceans can recover if we allow them to. Ireland now hosts the most important population of this once-overfished giant. Beneath Irish Seas aims to reveal this hidden world so that, by seeing it, we may all care to safeguard it just a little more.
Beneath Irish Seas: The Hidden Wonders of Ireland’s Amazing Marine Life by Nigel Motyer is published by Merrion Press
