Social:Leigh Bishop

Leigh Bishop

Shipwrecks and Explorations

May 5th... Entrance: £5 incl Buffet

SOLD OUT!!

This was an excellent evening in which Leigh introduced us to the wrecks of many White Star and other ocean liners of the Edwardian era. He used his own underwater photos, archive photos and even computer graphics to give guided tours of the ships as they were then and as they are now.

Leigh has promised to return to SASAC next year with a new talk.

Leigh Bishop is a professional HSE qualified diver regarded by many as Britain's foremost deep wreck photographer. Born in Northamptonshire England in 1968 he later began diving at the age of 21 where he quickly established himself on the technical scene during its infantile years. Utilizing mix gas to explore deep wrecks around the British Isles since 1991 his later 1997 King Edward expedition off North Scotland became the first of its kind to explore wrecks beyond 100m depths in European waters. With little material available on the subject of deep 35mm stills he took to photography specifically for the Britannic 98 expedition carving his own path in a somewhat specialized field.

Concentrating more so towards lost 20th Century Ocean liners his passion for this calibre of shipwreck has steered him to some of history's most famous shipwrecks, photographically cataloguing each one as he explores them. During several expeditions to the Lusitania he has accumulated almost ten hours physically on the wreck building the most extensive collection of images of the wreck to date. More recently he has photographed the WWII liner Transylvania sunk in 135m/445ft off the north Atlantic.

During 2001 along with fellow members of the internationally renowned deep wreck diving team 'Starfish Enterprise' he brought back the first images of the lost gold treasure shipwreck 'Egypt' sunk in deep water off the edge of Biscay (Western Atlantic). Again in 2001 Leigh Bishop made the discovery of the famous shipwreck Flying Enterprise lost in 1952. In his opinion we are currently in the golden age of shipwreck exploration and even after a decade of specialized deep exploration himself, he alone believes his has only just scraped the surface of what's to come.

In order to overcome depth & gas logistics of deep exploration he utilizes closed circuit technology to explore deeper shipwrecks year upon year. Together with the team he has documented for the first time countless shipwrecks through collective time capsulated periods. Established, as the team's main researcher Leigh had been responsible for much of the location work during their successful career throughout the decade of the 1990's. When not diving or researching a project he lectures & writes extensively having successfully published on the subject of deep wreck exploration throughout the world since 1994.

Interestingly enough Leigh Bishop does not make his living through his writing, research and rare photographic material but has a career as a full time fire fighter with the Hertfordshire Fire & Rescue Service, the county where he also lives with his family. His images have been published within dozens of shipwreck books worldwide although his photographic & research efforts are now focused more towards his own personal projects. Nikon & Aquatica photographic equipment are the workhorse behind Leigh's shipwreck images, which today evolve more towards ambient light monochrome. As he describes every photographer eventually finds their creative inner-self, capturing classic shipwrecks on monochrome film using natural light & long exposures with a tripod is something special indeed. These classic images are the backbone of his entertaining presentations, as seen at some of the larger UK diving events.