Graham Abbott – Guide & Cruise Director
The passion for exploration led to the naming of numerous dive sites around Indonesia and the discovery of numerous new species.
Since founding Diving 4 Images, we worked with many of the best photographers and film-makers in the business, becoming the dive guide of choice for many well known professionals. To name a few would be to list the late great BBC coral reef film maker Peter Scoones, National Geographic’s David Doubilet, the great IMAX film making team Howard & Michelle Hall and marine life experts Dr. Gerry Allen & Dr. Mark Erdmann, along with numerous others. To read what these have said about Graham check out the testimonials page.
Its not just about the professionals though, we enjoy nothing more than leading groups of enthusiastic non-professionals who share a passion. We are equally at home taking BBC camera crews to the right locations, leading a group of super enthusiastic macro lovers, going in search of rare and even new specimens and assisting superyachts.
The earlier days…
There was a super keen attraction to water ever since being a young boy growing up in England. Those first encounters with marine life were in the tide pools collecting specimens in buckets for closer examination. Even from a very early age there was great joy in finding strange and unusual animals and trying to figure out what they were. One day as a young kid that finding the first scorpion fish and wondering ‘what on earth is this?’.
There was never any thought of becoming a certified diver and diving on a regular basis was not even a dream; diving was something only the very privileged could do. Then moving to the tiny island of Jersey, meeting a few local divers brought an opportunity to give scuba diving a try. Needless to say, that first underwater experience was enough to lead to that first dive certified.
The first dive course was in Florida and it was in Florida hearing other divers tales of diving in exotic tropical locations. After some research South East Asia seemed to be the hotspot, flight tickets were purchased and the rest is history.
The very first dive on Sipadan Island was overwhelming, the vast abundance and diversity of Indo-Pacific marine life. After seeing so many sharks, barracudas, jacks, turtles and other big animals, there was a fascination in looking for other lesser known marine life – as in what else is there to see. This was so exciting, being underwater, enjoying showing the unusual finds to other divers; especially photographers who could capture the image forever.
It was whilst guiding divers on The Drop Off at Sipadan that another dream started to take shape; not being an instructor, having a dive shop or a boat, to guide the world’s best photographers, film-makers and the keenest marine life enthusiasts. Being able to work with such divers would mean constantly learning more and more about this amazing underwater environment he had discovered. The learning never stops!
Diving 4 Images is a dream that came to fruition.