photographie sous marine Archives - Fred Buyle - Nektos

The Click Effect, 360/VR documentary for the NY Times

Fred — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 01:02:33 +0000

For more than five years now we have been gathering 360° images and sounds for the Darewin Project.
New technology allows us to capture cetaceans’ sounds and behaviors like never before but the most important component remains freediving.
Freediving is the ultimate tool when it comes to observe and spend time with cetaceans to understand more about them. I’m always happy to see freediving reaching mainstream media. Qualitative media are being picky nowadays, not only you have to provide good content but it also has to be properly delivered into an interesting package.
Whale research made by freedivers filmed in 360° is a good start. We were then lucky to meet and start a great collaboration with film director Sandy Smolan who saw the potential of the story. He directed the 360° documentary for the NY Times and Annapurna Pictures known to find features films and projects that are off the beaten tracks and bringing them to a large audience produced it.
When the film was released, the NY Times ran a full page freediving picture everyday for five days.
Here is the link to the 360/VR film on NY Times website, words by James Nestor of course.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/04/16/opinion/sunday/conversation-with-whales.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

And a cool making of the project by Zach Rockwood:

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Hosting Airbnb event at Paris Aquarium

Fred — Tue, 19 Apr 2016 16:50:37 +0000

Earlier this month Airbnb organized one “a night at” event at the Paris Aquarium.
I was chosen to host it, it was a good opportunity to bring shark awareness and conservation to mainstream media. More than 1200 key media talked about it around the world including Good Morning America, Cnn amongst others. The guest slept in a underwater bedroom immersed in the main tank. On a personal level it was very interesting to collaborate with a company like Airbnb, their economical model is part of the future, shared economy is somehow one of the solutions for a better world and the ecological issues we are facing.

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baja california expedition

Fred — Sun, 29 Nov 2015 01:40:41 +0000

I wanted to do that trip for more than 20 years, sailing down Baja California and stop at the mythical dive spots such as Benitos, Alijos Rocks, Thetis Bank…

A friend of mine, Nicolas Mouchart, is currently doing a round the world sailing aboard his 42 foot steel ketch named Perd Pas Le Nord. He left from Belgium 3 years ago, he does not sails full time and divides the journey in legs of various duration. So far his biggest achievement was to go through the North West passage in 2013, Perd Pas le Nord was the only boot to successfully doing the passage that summer. After sailing down Canada and California he left the boat in San Diego. I decided to join for the next leg which was a 3 weeks trip around Baja to end up in La Paz. Nicolas and his girlfriend Florence are keen divers and freedivers so we planned the route with the best dive spots in mind.

But this year we were not lucky, with an strong El Nino and a shorter time frame of 2 weeks we couldn’t dive all the dream spots. Benito was beaten up by 4m swells and 35knts wind. We sailed down directly to Alijos Rocks in big seas and wind hoping it would calm down when on site. The bet paid off and when we reached Alijos the wind had dropped. But the residual swell made our 36h stay the worst anchorage we had ever experienced! The place is stunning, some small rocks sticking out of the open ocean 300km offshore, crystal clear waters and tons of fish. We were expecting lots of sharks but probably because of the storm they stayed very deep and only a few Galapagos sharks paid us an elusive visit. Some sea lions seem to own the place, they were very peaceful and not bothered by us at all.
We left Alijos heading to Cabo San Lucas for a quick refuel and then headed to La Paz where the boat will spend a couple of months. When Nicolas and Florence left, William Winram an I stayed a bit longer in the area to dive Cabo Pulmo with the Pelagios Kakunja team to help them tagging sharks. Cabo Pulmo marine reserve is simply amazing. Not only it is full of life but it is extremely well managed by the local community. The diving is strictly regulated, limited and spread over the dive spots leaving them period of total “rest”. It is an example that all the marine reserve should follow: why create a marine reserve if hundred and hundred of divers are bothering the sea life and create an anthropic pressure that can sometimes be even worst than a well managed fishery…? A topic that should be raised more often.
We saw only 3 shy bull sharks and we eventually tagged one.
The best memory of that trip is for sure the giant school of jacks, we spent hours contemplating that tornado of life, one of my best freediving moment ever!

[See image gallery at nektos.net]

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mid atlantic freediving

Fred — Thu, 06 Aug 2015 08:11:20 +0000

When you are freediving in the Azores you are already at the western part of old Europe, almost mid distance from what they call the New Wolrd. But if you want to feel even more in the the middle of the Atlantic and in the middle of nowhere, go to Princess Alice bank, a pinnacle 80km offshore Faial island…the rock literally raises from the abyss to 35m deep! It is home to lots of pelagic life and in summer the migrating mobula rays (Mobula tarapacana) are cruising these crystal clear waters. In the past I had the chance to encounter mako sharks and large blue marlins over there. You can expect the unexpected everyday when you freedive that magical spot! Please note that we don’t touch the animals, the pictures showing a freediver with his hand on a mobula was taken to document a scientific study aiming at collecting mucus for a DNA/stable isotope study of the University of the Azores. That method is the less invasive possible of course.

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norwegian artcic adventures

Fred — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 13:00:06 +0000

This year all the ingredients were there for a successful Norwegian expedition: a good sailboat as base mobile base camp, a seaworthy rib, a great crew of 8 highly motivated and competent freedivers/sailors and of course a big chunk of luck! So far I’ve never been very lucky with orcas, only one elusive encounter in Antarctica in 2013 and a unsuccessful expedition last year. The luck turned around and we had real encounters, not just observations or animals swimming by. We gathered HD/4K videos, captured incredible 360° uw footage never seen before and tested new equipment for the Think! project . Some images will be forever engraved in my mind: a baby orca trained by adults to catch the herrings right in front of us, a pack of 5 humpbacks surrounding us while feeding, two gigantic fin whales stopping right under to look at us… the list of unforgettable underwater moments goes on and on. Maybe we deserved it a little bit as the conditions were very hard: the air temperature went down to -12°c , the water was at 2°c, the boat heating system died on the second day so we had ice inside the boat for the rest of the trip ,fortunately we had hot water to put on and remove the wetsuits. Oh and we also killed two drones…

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Expedition Guadalupe 2014

Fred — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 11:21:19 +0000

Back from our 2014 Guadalupe Island expedition. This year we spent a full month based on the island instead of operating from a liveboard like we usually do.

Camping on the island helps a lot to focus on the tagging work and allows to enjoy Guadalupe at its full potential! From my first visit I could feel that Guadalupe was not only about the white sharks, there is much much more. The island itself is spectacular, the mineral landscapes totally surreal.

Our camp was set in a old building near a beach. Well, by building I mean some old walls with areas partially covered with old plywood sheets, the place was full of mice and roaches, there is no fresh water nor electricity.

We asked boats to fill our water jerrycans and once every two days we fired up an old 2 strokes generator for an hour

in order to charge our electronics. One hour was just enough not to get fully suffocated by the exhaust gases…

We brought all our food with us on the island and sometimes we were getting a meal on one of the diving charter boats anchoring in the bay and taking the opportunity to give a talk about the research we were conducting to the guests. These conditions don’t sound particularly nice but there are so many things to see here that we din’t even think about it.

This year was an El Nino year, the water was 3°c warmer than it should be and the sharks stayed well below the 40m thermocline, where the conditions are more stable for them. The visibility was not as good either. The sharks rarely visited the surface waters. Well, that’s just the cycle of nature, we had to deal with it, we had to be more opportunistic to tag the sharks as they were not staying very long after their curiosity in the boat and the freedivers was satisfied. Despite these difficult conditions and the usual problems you can face during expeditions in remote locations….we could eventually tag 14 great whites, four of them with a new generation tags that were deployed for the first time ever. These tags will bring groundbreaking informations about the social behavior of the great whites during their annual migration to Dr Mauricio Hoyos and Dr Yannis Papastamatiou, the leading scientist of the study .We were aiming specifically at male sharks to place these new tags.

Now we’ll have to wait next year for the second phase of the study and recover the precious data’s the tags will provide…..I can’t wait for next year’s expedition!!!!

We would like to thank Islander Charters, the owners Shane and John, the captain Jason and his amazingly professional crew who helped us a lot by giving us a ride to and back from Gudalupe as well as logistical support when they were at the island with their guests.

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whale newborn encounter

Fred — Tue, 02 Sep 2014 20:05:10 +0000

Today I probably had the most amazing experience I ever had in the Ocean. The funny thing is that yesterday I decided that today I’d post to a “blue” pic with nothing on it to show that for one successful day at sea, you’ll spend countless without seeing anything and not even mentioning that taking a decent pic of what you might see isn’t guaranteed either…
But this morning was just unbelievable: I got in with a socializing pod of sperm whales, and the reason of that big whale party was that a mother just gave birth to a calf a few minutes before…the water was still full of blood and the calf has part of its umbilical! For 30min we were in the middle of the celebration, feeling part of it, the mother was showing the calf to all the 20 others whales and even brought it to us!!!! These are very special moments happening in front of your eyes, you shouldn’t look for that because it might happen anytime, but the least you can do is to spend as much time as you can in the Ocean. Not more, not less.

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Time to Think!

Fred — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 10:00:07 +0000

Today we launch on Indiegogo our campaign to fund expeditions to gather data’s that will help to crack sperm whale language. It sounds crazy but this has nothing to do with new age stuff or people selling you trips to be in communion with marine mammals…it’s science, knowledge and years passion for these incredible animals. So jump onboard with us and get a chance to participate to the expedition and being part of the first 360° immersive documentary!

Think! On Indiegogo, click on the link!

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/98580566[/vimeo]

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Hammerhead shark tagging, Bimini

Fred — Tue, 15 Apr 2014 15:23:49 +0000

Earlier this year I collaborate on a great hammerhead shark tagging project setup by the Bimini Shark Lab. Using freediving and modified spearguns together with William Winram we could place 17 acoustic tags and 2 PAT tags in the least invasive way for these fragile predators. The aim of the research is to gather informations about their local movements and the connection with the great hammerhead Florida’s population. Bimini offers the perfect conditions to conduct such a mission and I can confirm that the great hammerhead is still my favorite shark!

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Freediving the Yucatan

Fred — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 03:01:11 +0000

For many years I wanted to freedive the cenotes of the Yucatan, but every year I was postponing the trip. Now it’s done, I had a blast exploring some of them. But when you freedive in Yucatan, you can have some other surprises…I had the chance to spend time in the water with crocodiles who love salt water. Thanks Julien to have guided us throughout that journey.

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