Shooting Scilly Seals

Demelza Postlethwaite & Will Postlethwaite · Issue 9, Oct/Nov 2002 · pp. 35–37

Products mentioned: Nikon F90X, Subal Miniflex housing, Nikon 20mm AFD lens, Fuji Provia 100 F, Sea&sea YS120 strobes

There can be few experiences to match an interaction between man and another mammal. When the experience takes place in an element which differs to our own and with creatures of rivalling intelligence it can become almost life changing in its effect. Atlantic Grey Seals exist in a few colonies off the British coast but there is just one place, to our knowledge, which provides the photographer with almost guaranteed opportunities to capture this creature on film underwater and in clear water. The Scilly Isles, 28 miles off the coast of Lands End in Cornwall, are a sub tropical idyll for wildlife and people alike. Life long Scillonian, Mark Groves, sets out almost daily with his RIB full of visitors to the Isles hoping to snorkel with a colony of seals around the jagged uninhabited Eastern Rocks. Occasionally the snorkelers are joined by divers but more often it is film crews. A pioneer of…