Articles

A sunburst image of a male green turtle off the reef in Sipadan, Malaysia
 

DPG Photographer of the Week, Simon Lorenz, is an avid traveler, professional photographer, and PADI instructor based out of Hong Kong. With Southeast Asian dive sites practically in his backyard, it’s no wonder everything Simon does revolves around the water. Whether he is organizing dive-related travel through his company Insider Divers or distributing underwater photography products through his company Five Gills—Simon has been fortunate enough to turn his passion into a career. He also dabbles in pool portrait photography and provides scuba diving instruction. Both his imagery and writing have been featured in magazines around the world,  including ScubaDiver AustralAsia, Scuba Diver, EZDive, Plongeurs, DIVE UK, Dive Pacific, Divelog, and Action Asia.

In the beautiful photographs that follow, I especially love the feel of his backlit images, and think he has achieved some stunning results with this lighting technique. The frogfish yawn and the outline of the seahorse are both dramatic and intimate, and are two of my personal favorites. Furthermore, I very much like how he has shown the scale of his subjects in both the flamboyant cuttlefish shot and the over-under at the Taj Mahal Cenote. But, I also like how he has also taken an over-photographed subject like the clownfish, and provided a glimpse into the trials and tribulations life can sometimes throw at these beloved little fish. I think it’s fair to say the fascination so many of us have with the underwater domain is very well captured and conveyed in Simon’s wide-angle and macro photography work.
 

A clownfish with tongue-eating parasite in Lembeh, Indonesia
 

The backlit nasal extension of a ribbon eel—shot during one of Simon’s workshops in Lembeh, Indonesia
 

A jellyfish captured on a blackwater dive above the abyss of the Palau Trench
 

Yawning hairy frogfish with backlighting, Lembeh, Indonesia
 

A backlit seahorse at “Bethlehem,” in Manado, Indonesia
 

A juvenile flamboyant cuttlefish swimming towards the surface, spotted by a dive guide at the end of a long dive
 

Hungry reef sharks swimming around the boat looking for scraps, Chuuk Lagoon
 

An over-under of a diver in the Taj Mahal Cenote in Yucatán, Mexico
 

A diver in a canyon on Chuuk’s outer reef
 

A creative group shot in Virgin Blue Hole, Palau
 

Anthias madness at Verde Island, Philippines
 

A juvenile whale shark at Jessie Beazley Reef in Tubbataha, Philippines
 

Simon Lorenz
 

See more of Simon’s exceptional imagery at www.simonlorenz.de and www.poolportrait.com, or check out his dive trips at Insider Divers.