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2012 Feedback
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The
next Conference
is October
25/26 2014.
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Leigh Bishop
- Co founder & EuroTek organiser
Leigh Bishop has been exploring
shipwrecks for the last two decades and was one of the first
British divers to use mixed gas in order to dive the deeper
shipwrecks around England. His particular dedication to exploring
the many thousands of wrecks in the English Channel has led
him to identify scores of previously unknown sites as well as
discover several famous wrecks such as the Flying Enterprise.
Leigh began diving wrecks in the 1980’s, before this he
was a regular caver on the UK Scene where he had met the late
Rob Palmer who went on to educate him one to one on the concept
of mixed gas techniques for deep diving. During the 1990’s
he spent most of his time diving with the Starfish Enterprise
wreck diving team led by the late Polly Tapson, a team who continually
pushed the boundaries of sport diving. |
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| During the 1990’s he led the first expedition to explore
a shipwreck deeper than 330ft/100m in European waters where
the Starfish team identified the British Battleship HMS King
Edward VII lying at a depth of 380ft/115m. He took up still
underwater photography specifically for the Britannic &
several RMS Lusitania projects he was involved with. Britannic
the largest sunken ocean liner in the world was one of his first
deep photographic assignments in 1998 and was again later tasked
with the job as official expedition photographer for the National
Geographic Channel 2003 project. |
| During the early 1990’s Leigh was fascinated by the
possibility of bringing home a photograph of a wreck deeper
than 330ft, by 1998 this had become a reality and later he went
on to bring back the first photographs of the famous gold ship
the ‘Egypt’ sunk in deep water off north west France.
His next challenge in underwater photography was to photograph
huge sections of shipwreck that could be identified by non divers.
By now he was working on the wrecks of the North Atlantic such
as the Justicia and the awesome dreadnought battleship HMS Audacious.
To capture large panoramic shots of wrecks Leigh pioneered the
art of shooting fast black & white film with long exposure
times. To do this he mounted his cameras on fixed tripods and
set them up on the seabed’s around specific shipwrecks
often in depths of 400ft. Shooting wrecks around the world under
this new concept his images began to embraced the covers of
many of the worlds scuba magazines and as his roots lie in English
Channel wreck research & study his knowledge of writing
turned him into one of the most prolific shipwreck authors of
the last decade. |
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Leigh went onto photograph ocean liners such as
the Transylvania sunk in the North Atlantic in 450ft of water,
in 2003 he was a photographer on a NOAA scientific expedition
to Titanic as well as traveling to Poland to photograph the
Nazi liner Wilhelm Gustloff Maritimes biggest shipwreck disaster
with an estimated 10,000 people going down with the wreck. Leigh
has led expeditions that have discovered significant U-Boats
as well as lost British Submarines and with his teams became
the first to explore previously lost wrecks such as HMS Affray
& HMS Vandal. More recently he was with the British Royal
Navy in the Arctic searching for the lost submarine X5 last
seen during the famous Tirpitz raid of WW2.
In the early part of the millennium he worked with teams
led by the late Keith Morris to explore significant war ships
of historic interest, his photography and writing of these
discoveries have helped bring together numerous survivors
& family’s after 60 years.
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| Today he lectures on the subject of shipwrecks extensively
and during the English off season he travels the world regularly
attending major diving industry shows headlining speaker line
ups. In England he lectures at museums and nautical conferences
and restores artifacts from shipwrecks which can be seen in
several English Museums. He also writes treatments for television
shipwreck documentaries and appears in many of them as a leading
exploration expert, using rebreather technology of which he
has been involved in the significant development of with UK
companies. |
| Although his shipwreck travels have taken him around the globe
he still continues to explore shipwrecks in what he calls his
‘back yard’ the English Channel. The English Channel
is a virtual museum of over 5,000 known shipwrecks that have
sunk since wood could float the vast many of them classic tramp
steamers all with a story to tell. Often the only way to identify
the vast majority of the wrecks is by the recovery of the ships
bell, by doing so we can finally document their history and
what happened to them before they biologically implode and become
nothing more that iron ore deposits on the ocean floor. As long
as they are there we shall keep photographing and documenting
them for others to enjoy, others that may not have for whatever
reason, the option of visiting them for themselves. |
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Download Profile with images written for
advanced diving magazine |
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Download current CV for commercial use |
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Download Speaker merits |
Contact Leigh click here >>
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Leigh Bishop is a fellow international
member of the Explorers Club
www.explorers.org |
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His website includes many of his images and expeditions and can be
found on his website www.deepimage.co.uk
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