Cave diving in Mexico

In 2024 I dived the cenotes of Yucatán with my buddy Manuel. Own work, no client — and it turned out to be the hardest lighting I have ever worked with.

Why a cave is different from a wreck

On a wreck in the Oostvoornse Meer it is dark, but there is light from above. Something comes down, however little, and you always know where the surface is.

In a cave there is nothing. No daylight, no direction, no background. Every bit of light in your shot comes from what you carried in, which means you light every frame yourself. Whatever falls outside your lamps is black.

That is what cave diving asks of a cameraman and wreck diving does not: you are not only the camera, you are the lighting too. And you only have so many hands.

The cenotes

We dived the well-known systems — Monkey Dust, Car Wash and others. Depth was manageable; with cenotes that is rarely the problem.

Distance is. Some systems sit far enough out that you are travelling for hours before you get in the water. You carry everything you need, and forgetting something does not mean forgetting — it means going back.

What it gives you

Flooded caves with stalactites that stood there before the water did. Visibility you will never get in the Netherlands. And silence.

The image above is from that system: two divers in the space, lit by nothing but what we carried in ourselves.