Meet Bella Smith, an up-and-coming student photographer who has fallen in love with the seas around Falmouth
UKDIVING
Swaying seaweed, Cows Beach, Cornwall
Double take
Meet Bella Smith, an up-and-coming student photographer who has fallen in love with the seas around Falmouth
A
lobster’ s carapace melts into surface ripples of a Cornish sea, while kelp fronds and thongweed dance in front of a textured background. This is the work of Bella Smith, 19, part of a new generation of underwater photographers offering fresh visions of their marine experience.
Bella is a BSAC member and student at Falmouth University, having just completed the second year of the Marine and Natural History course. Although she hails from Nottingham, she has long been drawn to the sea and learned to dive aged 14 in anticipation of joining the course.
She says:“ It has allowed me to dive, camp, hike and snorkel as part of our
" I always want to express the wonder and beauty of the ocean "
curriculum( with occasional lectures and seminars of course). Our real classroom, however, has been the incredible coastline of Cornwall. As an ocean lover and marine biology enthusiast, this course has been the best decision I have ever made.”
Bella has been using an Olympus OMD camera in a Nauticam housing, part of the university’ s arsenal of camera equipment. This camera has a feature which enables double exposures, which she has used to layer images of water texture, seaweed and marine creatures from her local waters.
“ My first dive in the kelp forests of Falmouth had a huge effect on me,” she says.“ I love this subject so much that I have
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