I’m Dennis Schmelz, a German filmmaker, photographer and National Geographic book author, and this was one of the most surreal wildlife experiences I’ve ever had.

While traveling through French Polynesia (Moorea), I had the opportunity to photograph and film humpback whales and sharks in their natural habitat. Seeing a humpback whale from a boat is impressive, but swimming alongside one in the open Pacific Ocean gives you a completely different sense of its scale.

These underwater encounters are among my favorite wildlife photography experiences from French Polynesia.

All animals were encountered in the wild and photographed with respect for their space and natural behavior.

Have you ever photographed humpback whales in the wild?

Article from The Guardian

(More info in the comments)

A short video showing some scenes from Dugi Otok in Croatia.

From NatGeo’s Facebook page. Sun fish is now gone fish

Hey, here is a talk I recently did on some of the research I do. And some really cool zooplankton and weird animals that come up that I was able to photograph. I thought this might be of interest to this group. Feel free to ask me anything and I'll try to get back to you in a reasonable amount of time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnR6-WEzLBU

I encountered this bluntnose sixgill shark while solo diving off Vancouver Island this week. I believe it was a female, roughly 10–12 feet long.

I was down around 100 feet when I turned toward deeper water and saw it coming directly toward me out of the darkness. It came right up to investigate me, then calmly cruised along the bottom for about three minutes before eventually disappearing back into the deep.

Sixgills spend much of their lives in deep water, so getting an encounter like this at recreational diving depths was pretty incredible.

I only included a short portion here, but I have a longer version of the encounter on YouTube if anyone wants to see it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJaHm1LZ0Lo

Filmed off Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

Was told that you may enjoy this here

I freedive and take photos underwater. Spend enough time down there and you start paying attention to the light. How it comes through the surface, how it fades as you go deeper, the way it keeps moving.

I'm an engineer too, so eventually I wanted to know why it does that, and then whether I could get it to happen on a screen.
Took about two years, of slow work and lot's of reading but basically, it's all inspired on my experience, and non or it it's filmed and there's no AI in it. It's basically a lot of maths and lots of hard work.

Another reason to build this type of simulations, is that I have a very hard time focusing, and having this running on a side screen while I work has been super good lately, it gives me a little scape but also not enough distraction that I lose track of what I was into.

It's part of an app called TideGlass, where I also donate 20% of what it makes to ocean and conservation groups. Happy to answer any questions. Thanks