Leigh Bishop at OZTeK'07

Regarded by many as Europe's foremost deep wreck photographer, Leigh Bishop will be one of the many internationally renowned diving personalities presenting talks at OZTeK'07, to be held at Australian Technology Park, In Sydney, on the 17th and 18th March 2007.

Adopting various gas mixtures to explore deep wrecks around the world since 1991, Leigh Bishop's 1997 'King Edward V11' expedition off North Scotland became the first of its kind to explore wrecks beyond 330ft depths in European waters. Now concentrating more towards lost 20th Century Ocean liners, his passion for this calibre of vessel 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 of dive time physically on the wreck building the most extensive collection of images of the vessel to date. More recently he has photographed the WWII liner 'Transylvania' sunk in 445ft off the north Atlantic and was lead photographer for the recent 400ft deep 'Britannic 2003' expedition. During 2001 he brought back the first images of the lost gold treasure shipwreck 'Egypt' sunk in deep water in the Western Atlantic and, again in 2001, Leigh Bishop made the discovery of the famous shipwreck, 'Flying Enterprise' lost in 1952.

He believes that we are currently in the golden age of shipwreck exploration and even after a decade of specialized deep exploration himself, he is convinced that this has only just scraped the surface of what's to come. Now using rebreather technology, he has documented for the first time countless shipwrecks through collective time capsulated periods. Established as a leading researcher, Leigh had been responsible for much of the location work of notable shipwrecks. When not diving or researching a project he lectures and writes extensively, having successfully published on the subject of deep wreck exploration throughout the world since 1994.

Currently working as a development closed circuit rebreather diver for closed circuit technologies, Leigh Bishop's images have been published within dozens of shipwreck books worldwide. As he describes it, every photographer eventually finds their creative inner-self and capturing classic shipwrecks on monochrome film using natural light and long exposures with a tripod is something special indeed. These classic images, (some of which can be seen by visiting: http://www.deepimage.co.uk ) are the backbone of his entertaining presentations around the world.

A two-day programme devoted solely to diving and packed with speaker presentations, workshops, seminars, displays as well as a full-scale exhibition showcasing every facet of diving, OZTeK'07 is for everyone who dives: An event that will be as exciting and informative as it will be entertaining.

For further information about OZTeK'07, contact the Convenors at: PO Box 1128, Dee Why, NSW 2099, Australia. Tel: +61 (2) 9971 2559. Fax: +61 (2) 9981 2950. E-mail: admin@diveoztek.com.au or visit the website at: http://www.diveoztek.com.au

Contributed by Richard Taylor added 2006-10-06