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Eagle rays in Mauritius

This week’s featured photographer, Gerald Rambert, was born in September 1979 and grew up in the northern region of the island of Mauritius. After completing his education in the French Lycée, he worked for four years in agricultural research and development before pursing his dream to explore the underwater world and work in the dive industry.

Fascinated by fish and photography at an early age, Gerald was an enthusiastic aquarium owner and freediver before training to become a scuba instructor in 2001. Selling up everything to pay for his certifications—including his beloved aquarium—he achieved the highest grades in his course examinations and was soon combining his passion for scuba diving with his first steps in underwater photography.

His first underwater camera was a Canon PowerShot A20, which he purchased from his good friend Mathieu Meur, and he quickly learned the basics by studying other photographers’ work and experimenting with different techniques. After pushing his compact camera to its limits, Gerald added an Inon flash to his arsenal, which took his photography to the next level. Eventually, he was able to upgrade to his first DSLR, a Nikon D70, and really work like a pro.

As his photography continued to improve, he began to attract the attention of dive magazines and websites, and did some freelance work for Diver magazine in the UK, which gave him the opportunity to travel more often and cover some new dive destinations. The images he captured on his travels went on to win a number of underwater photography competitions, further enhancing his profile. Today, Gerald runs his own diving school in western Mauritius and leads underwater photography workshops once or twice a year with the Siren Fleet and Master Liveaboards all over the world.

His portfolio is one of my favorites of the year so far, as it is bursting with color and features a variety of different subjects and techniques from many different dive destinations. I particularly like the wide-angle reef scenes of fish and corals captured in Indonesia; I hope the reefs in Raja Ampat stay as vibrant as they look in these images for years to come.
 

The famous wall of sharks in Fakarava, French Polynesia
 

Clownfish on bleached anemone in the Philippines
 

Butterflyfish in Komodo, Indonesia
 

Juvenile lionfish, Komodo, Indonesia
 

A healthy reef in Raja Ampat, Indonesia
 

Fluorescent Rhinopias in Komodo, Indonesia
 

Batfish in Raja Ampat, Indonesia
 

A reef of hard corals, Raja Ampat, Indonesia
 

Lionfish on a reef in Komodo, Indonesia
 

School of surgeonfish in Raja Ampat, Indonesia
 

School of sweetlips in Raja Ampat, Indonesia
 

Shark at Snake Island, Mauritius
 

Mauritian clownfish in its host anemone
 

Coral-covered mangrove forests thrive in Raja Ampat, Indonesia
 

Gerald in action!
 

To see more of Gerald’s work, visit his website, www.geraldrambert.com.