IAN Marriner has been scuba diving in the Port Stephens region for almost 40 years.

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Armed with an oxygen tank and a camera, Ian has dedicated his time to capturing the beauty of the area’s unique marine life and habitats.

A collection of Ian’s work will be on display at the Artisan Collective throughout September, all of which have a local collection to Port Stephens.

“The work I have on display is all local Port Stephens material. It is a combination of underwater work and local seascapes around Nelson Bay,” said Ian.

“I want to showcase the local area. You say underwater photography and people think of the Great Barrier Reef. I want to show that you don’t need to go there to see some spectacular things, you just need five metres of water ten metres offshore here at Nelson Bay.”

Ian said that underwater photography came with its own set of unique challenges.

“A lot of things can happen with the light underwater. We have different pressures, we have everything in the water that we need to deal with, we need to have the diving skills as well.

“Staying alive is always sitting there at the back of your mind, so it can be very distracting at times, you will suddenly look at your pressure gauge and think I need to get out of here.”

After 40 years of diving, Ian says he is still often caught by the beauty found below local waterways and loves the challenge of capturing it on film.

“You get entranced with some of the things you see down there, you are trying different angles and lighting and composition.

“You can make every day ordinary things look much more artistic.”

Ian said he has seen a lot of changes to ecology and marine life in his four decades of diving locally.

“We have certainly seen the impact of changes in water temperature,” we said.

“We have seen changes in ecology, things like soft corals and sea horses getting rarer and rarer. We are seeing a lot more tropical fish all year round and the migration of tropical fish south.”

For more information on Ian’s work, visit his Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/underandoverimages.

To learn more about the collection currently on display at the Artisan Collective, visit
https://artisancollectiveps.com.au/.

By Doug CONNOR