Henley Spiers

Peter Rowlands · Issue 145, Jul/Aug 2025 · pp. 40–51

Products mentioned: Nikon D850, Nikon D7200, Nikon 28-70mm, Nikon 8-15mm, Nikonos 13mm, Nikon 60mm, Nikon 105mm, Nauticam WACP-1, Nauticam housing, Retra Pro X strobes, Inon Z240 strobes, Sea & Sea YS-D2, Olympus EM5

Like so many in our industry, your career started as a dive instructor. Did that put you in contact with serious underwater photographers or did you have a lightbulb moment when underwater photography became an obvious choice for you to progress your career and communicate with the wider world? Until my mid to late twenties, I had shown practically zero interest in photography, either on land or underwater. In my time as a diving instructor, most of my customers were either trainee divers, Divemasters-in- the-making, or tourist divers. Almost none carried a camera or had a focus on photography. I think that was probably the last of an era in a way because almost everyone carries some form of camera down these days, mostly of the action cam variety. I guess it’s an extension of the smartphones we all now carry - everyone is a photographer. I have a clear memory of a ‘serious’ underwater p…