Underwater cameraman

I film underwater. Usually in places where that does not come easy: wrecks in murky inland water, flooded mine shafts, caves you only enter on a rebreather and a line. That is where I earn my keep, and it is also where most crews turn back.

Why you want someone who dives it themselves

A cameraman strapped to a diver produces footage in which the camera stumbles along behind the action. Underwater there is no second take: you have a bottom time, you have gas, and if the setup is wrong you surface with nothing. I plan the shoot like a dive and the dive like a shoot, and in the edit that matters more than any camera does.

I am GUE certified for CCR2 and CCR Cave, an instructor with PADI and SSI, and I work to one hundred metres. That is not a boast but a precondition: it decides which locations are on the table at all when you plan a production.

What you get

• Shooting days or a full production. From a single day on camera to the whole thing, including planning the dives and the team around them.
• My own equipment. Nauticam housing and my own lighting. You are not renting a second package and you are not losing a day getting kit to talk to each other.
• Footage that goes straight into the edit. Delivered ordered and logged, with colour space and frame rate matched to whatever your editor runs. Tell me up front what you need and that is how it arrives.
• An honest answer before you commit. If what you want to film will not work at that depth, in that water, in that season, you hear it from me before you book the trip.

Where I work

In Dutch inland water — the Oostvoornse Meer, the Vinkeveense Plassen — where visibility sometimes reaches no further than a few metres and lighting and composition have to carry everything. And at sea and in the German mines, where visibility is not the problem but depth and logistics are.

I work internationally as well; the Ghost Diving project in Greece is one example.

What it costs

On request, and that is not a dodge. A shooting day in Vinkeveen and a week in a Greek bay with a team of four are two different conversations. Tell me what you want to film, where and when, and you get a price with nothing hiding behind it.