About my site

My site is all about Underwater Photography with digital compact cameras and digital SLRs (I've been a photography professional for a long time, I had my first pictures published over thirty years ago), plus advice and information on diving the many shipwrecks of the Egyptian Red Sea (I escort specialist wreck tours for Tony Backhurst Scuba Travel and I've been diving the Egyptian Red Sea for almost twenty years).

You'll also find details of my underwater photography courses and my Red Sea wreck book, Death of Ships.

Here's a picture from the Red Sea, a Napoleon Wrasse cruising beneath the hull of Typhoon at Beacon Rock, seen at the end of a dive on the wreck of the Dunraven

And to show you that it isn't all warm blue water, here's a wreck image from a local lake, a little cabin cruiser with guardian pike.....

About me...

I started diving in 1990 with two try-dives off the north-east tip of Malta, then took the step of joining a local club and buying my own dive kit in 1991.  Most of my early diving was done around the coasts of England and Scotland, personal highlights were the seals of the Farne Islands and the wrecks of Oban and Scapa.  I qualified as a BSAC Advanced Diver and Advanced Instructor in 1994, though it's a while since I was a branch member.

I've been a photographer and writer for a lot longer than I've been a diver.  I had my first pictures published in 1978, and have photographed weddings, sports and more over the years.  It was only natural that I took a camera underwater at the first opportunity, and bought a Nikonos V, 20mm wide-angle and Ikelite Ai strobe in 1992, almost as soon as I was qualified.  I went digital with a compact outfit in 2003 when the Nik V died - they just don't make anything to last - and then bought a digital SLR in 2006.  I love the SLR, but I do sometimes yearn for the compact size of my Nikonos and digital compacts.

I had my first article published in Diver magazine in 2000, and since then I've contributed regularly to their pages.  I write mostly humour, with some travel.  You can read my stuff on Divernet, just search for my name! 

I've been leading specialist wreck safaris to the Red Sea since 2004, and since 2006 I've been with Tony Backhurst Scuba.  My first book, Death of Ships, was the result of all that experience, and over the last year I've started teaching underwater photography.

I hope you enjoy looking around the site, and that there's something here to interest you.  if you have any comments or suggestions you can email me on jmikeward@tiscali.co.uk