Chiiz Volume 04 : Wildlife Photography | Page 10

Ocean is the Love of my Life: Camilla Tombari " The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever." - Jacques Yves Cousteau Q uoting Cousteau, our photographer of the month, Camilla Tombari, in an interview, discloses her relationship with the ocean. She recalls her early days and says she was brought up near the ocean. Ocean was where she wanted to be, where she needed to be. To her, ocean was where she could find peace against all the chaos of everyday life. Born and raised in Italy, she found her true love in the ocean. Her first dive -which she experienced at the age of ten- made her fall in love with the water molecules. She developed a taste for underwater photography after she took her first diving certificate at the age of eleven. Currently, she is studying photography at RMIT, Melbourne. Finding her food for life in photography, she is deeply in love with the ocean and its beauty and here are a few pictures which show her immense love for nature. Jew (Founder of Whales Underwater) true to his words when he told her that swimming with whales was addictive. Swimming with those ‘gentle giants’, to her, felt like pure magic. “Each encounter is unique and special in its own way, and depending on which time of the season you go you will get different interactions. Sometimes you just get a brief sight of the whales while they are swimming past, sometimes mum and calf are resting on the surface and they let you stay with them for a while. Each time is different, each time will be better than the previous one,” says Camilla describing her journey underwater. In October 2013, Whales Underwater gave Camilla a chance to travel to Vava’u, Tonga, a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean. Vava’u is where whales come to lay their eggs every year, from July until October, travelling all the way from Antarctica. She found Darren Meenal Singh [email protected] Meenal Singh is an undergraduate student of Miranda House, University of Delhi. She aspires to be a lecturer in English Literature. Meenal wishes to fight for the equality of women worldwide through the power of her words. This snap is of an afternoon when the sun had started descending with thousands of its golden rays piercing through the water. This pair of mum and calf was resting peacefully when Camilla’s camera found them. She captured the purity of the mother-child relationship: the tenderness of the mum while touching the calf and the beautiful smile on the face if the baby. Canon EOS 600D 15mm F/8 1/250s ISO320