That Greenpeace trip was the first of many for me. I was taken on as assistant photographer on that driftnet campaign, and took many shocking underwater photographs which helped sway public opinion against driftnetting.

Back then, the work of a photographer on Greenpeace ships was very different. In order to be able to send photographs out from the ship, we had to shoot in black and white. After a few hours out in the inflatables, photographing animals caught in the nets, I would disappear into the darkroom. Using wet chemicals to process the film, I would hang it up to dry, print out a proof sheet of pictures, and then decide with the campaigners which pictures to send out on the wire machine.

Then I would disappear into the darkroom to print up some enlargements of the best pictures. This wan't always easy on a moving ship, but once I was satisfied I had the best print possible, the picture was captioned and placed in the wire machine for transmission. This involved wrapping the print around a metal drum, which then rotated at a constant speed while a sensor passed slowly along the cylinder 'reading' the blacks, whites, and greys of the image. This took about ten minutes, while the information was sent out on a radio signal to a receiver on the shore. This was how our pictures were sent out to newspapers around the world. From returning to the ship to sending out the pictures would take around 1.5 to 2 hours of hectic work.

Today, things are much easier. On this trip I am, for the first time, using a fancy new digital camera. It's a Kodak/Nikon DCS ProSLRn, with three autofocus lenses covering a wide range of focal lengths. I no longer have to change film after only 36 pictures. I take 3 batteries and 2 x 1GB memory cards when I go out in the inflatables. This gives me a capacity for nearly 500 high resolution pictures (13MB files) before I come back to the Rainbow Warrior!

Once back on board I simply remove the memory card from the camera, stick it in a port on the laptop computer, and download the 230 images, on the card. Then I simply flick through the images on the computer, select the ones we want to send out, crop or adjust them if needed in Photoshop, adjust the file size, then the Radio Operator on the ship emails the images to Greenpeace headquarters in Amsterdam, via satellite.

>From my returning to the ship, to full colour pictures arriving at anywhere in the world can take as little as 20 minutes. The changing technology is helping keep you in touch and up to date with what is happening out here on the high seas. I hope that the photos that I've taken on this trip will influence public opinion and governments in making the right decisions about protecting deep sea life!

Roger Grace,
Photographer onboard the Rainbow Warrior in the Tasman Sea

Hammerhead shark drowned in driftnet followed by sukerfish,
Arafura Sea (c)Greenpeace/Grace, 01/07/1993

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Update: 24/06/04 - Reponse to Audrey's comments below:

Hello Audrey,

Many thanks for your comments on the picture on the website. I am the photographer on the Rainbow Warrior, just returned from the Tasman Sea, where we documented the devastating effects of deep sea trawlers.

The black and white photo you are referr to is one I took back in 1990 on the first campaign of the new Rainbow Warrior, protesting at the use of driftnets in the Tasman Sea. Unfortunately the fish in the picture was already dead so could not be released alive. Nearly all the animals we found in the nets were already dead, as most pelagic (ocean-going) fish rely on their forward movement to get water to pass over their gills so they can breath. When they get stopped by a net they cannot pump sufficient water over their gills so they suffocate within a few minutes. The only type of fish we found that could live trapped in the net for a long time was the ocean sunfish. This huge fish can continue to pump water over its gills and so can survive several hours trapped in the net. We found one alive on that trip in 1990 and we managed to cut it free from the net and release it alive and well - all documented on underwater film and in a series of stills. You may have seen the picture of the sunfish being cut free from the net - its a photo Greenpeace has used a lot over the years.

That campaign was instrumental in having oceanic driftnets banned worldwide, so Greenpeace was successful in helping to stop the destruction of sea and bird life by driftnets. We are hoping to eventually achieve a similar result for the deep sea animals living on the bottom, by getting a moratorium on deep sea trawling on the high seas.

You ask why it looks like the picture on the website was taken from down in a well. I was using a 16mm fisheye lens on the camera, which enables me to get close to the subject but still get it all in the frame. One side effect of this lens is that it produces a sort of "barrel distortion", making everything around the edges look curved. But there is more to it than that. The circle you see on the surface is a phenomenon called "Snell's window". If you are underwater on a perfectly calm sea (or even in the bottom of a calm swimming pool looking up), what you will see is a circle above you. Outside the circle you see a reflection of what is on the bottom of the pool, because the surface of the calm water acts like a mirror. Above that circle you see through the water surface to all the stuff above the water. You will see things above the water clearly only if the water surface is absolutely still and calm. Normally the water is a bit ripply, and this disrupts the image so it is not clear. This is also why in the picture on the website the circle itself is a little ragged, and not the perfectly smooth circle it would be if the sea was mirror smooth - doesn't often happen on the open ocean! So within the circle you are seeing a slightly wobbly view of the clouds above the water, and outside the circle you are seeing a reflection of what is in the sea. In this case the reflection back down into the sea is a view down into the deep sea, which here was around 3000 metres deep, so it just looked a deep blue. In this black and white picture of course it looks dark grey.

I hope that helps explain the picture on the website.

I will be joining the Rainbow Warrior again on 1st July, to travel to Fiji and then further north into the Pacific for the next campaign. There will be updates on the website starting again in a couple of weeks or so, so keep checking the site for updates of what we are up to.

Feel free to contact me if you want to discuss my pictures in future. You can reach me through the website once I am back onboard.

Best wishes,

Roger Grace :-)