Top 7 Dive Photographers to Follow

1. David Doubilet

The National Geographic photographer who spent 50+ years documenting underwater environments globally. Doubilet is credited with pioneering the split-level photograph — simultaneously above and below the waterline — and has covered every major coral reef system in the world. His book Fish Face (2012) is a masterclass in macro portrait technique.

2. Alex Mustard

British photographer with a PhD in marine biology and a technical mastery of wide-angle strobe lighting that is difficult to match. Mustard's Red Sea work — particularly his images of the Thistlegorm and Elphinstone Reef sharks — are among the most technically precise underwater photographs produced.

3. Laurent Ballesta

French diver-photographer who leads the Gombessa scientific expeditions. Ballesta spent 24 hours in the coelacanth habitat off South Africa during a saturation dive in 2014, and subsequently documented spawning grouper aggregations in French Polynesia at night — footage that had never been captured before.

4. Cristina Mittermeier

Co-founder of SeaLegacy and National Geographic contributing photographer. Mittermeier's work focuses on the intersection of marine conservation and visual storytelling. Her imagery of Galapagos, Baja California, and the Pacific Northwest is characterized by a near-cinematic approach to light and composition.

5. Marcello di Francesco

Italian photographer who has specialized in wide-angle encounters with large pelagics — whale sharks, oceanic mantas, humpback whales — producing images that convey scale through compositional minimalism. His collaborations with the IUCN Shark Specialist Group have contributed to scientific documentation of behaviour at major aggregation sites.

6. Tony Wu

Japanese-American photographer based in Tokyo who has spent decades documenting cetacean and large pelagic behaviour. Wu's sperm whale encounters in Sri Lanka and Galapagos and his humpback whale documentation in Tonga are among the most published cetacean images of the last 20 years.

7. Anita Kainrath

Austrian underwater photographer who has built an extensive body of work on Mediterranean and Red Sea invertebrate life — nudibranchs, octopus, cephalopods. Her macro technique uses optical wet lenses rather than dedicated macro lenses, demonstrating that high-quality macro work doesn't require expensive dedicated equipment.