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01/12/2006: "POSTCARD ....... from the Great Barrier Reef"
It was Cairns 1980 and a friend, John Celia (husband of Jan, pictured above) introduced me to Peter Erbe, soon to be the postcard king of Australia. This was the early era of international tourism to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef and business was about to take off.
My underwater photography had been in hibernation. My diving partner had gone overseas to spend her profits, I was not bothering with stills – the equipment needed updating and was a few years away from the purchase of Nikonos 15mm, 20mm lens and strobe, all minimum standards for 'professionals'.
I was shooting underwater movies for video release and living off film showings in theatres but not doing much with still photography.
Peter Erbe (today a best-selling author) wanted underwater reef pictures for his new postcards business. He wasn’t connected to any of the diving photographers capable of delivering quality. How to get the ball rolling, fast?
I sat at his typewriter desk with a letterhead and typed a note to my famous friends Ron and Valerie in Sydney that went something like:
Dear Val,
The postcard king here at Cairns seeks quality 35mm duplicates of underwater reef scenes for a series of postcards to be published.
These are the best postcards I have ever seen.
Could you please send about twenty shots. He will pay for whatever is used.
Regards etc
Out of the 20 pictures that arrived, an amazing 16 got published, the selection was that stunning. They became postcards and other tourism items and sold well for the next 10 years or more.
Peter Erbe later published a few of my pictures including the clown fish (above) a popular seller and possibly still is.
Later a Crown of Thorns starfish postcard (1989) was a great publishing coup for me.
(The former National party state government and northern tourism lobbies had denied emphatically, as best they could, there was a starfish problem. This is moderately easy when anything is hidden underwater).
Now a tourism publicity-type picture showing two scuba girls in colored lycra suits examining a giant crown of thorns starfish was on a postcard for sale in dozens of outlets all along the north Queensland coast.
The starfish problem was no longer a debate to be argued, denied and delayed. Funds for starfish control (by divers) eventually began in a valid effort to save parts of the inshore hard coral reef remaining.
At Mission Beach, charter boat owner, Perry Harvey ignored prosecution threats and illegally removed thousands of crown of thorns starfish from the corals at Beaver Cay, his preferred day trip destination.
Perry and crew helped save this small, stunning location, the bureaucrats argued as elsewhere and nearby beautiful corals degenerated into grey, slime covered rubble.
Many marine scientists still believe dead reef returns to normal, as before reef – I’d think seriously again about that. The returning reef is nowhere near the original beauty, I wish this were the case.
You can tell when a reef has been knocked about by starfish – it looks different, never as good as the pristine places apparently missed.
The era of these great expanses of beautiful coral reefs is passing without ever having been fully enjoyed and appreciated.
Most tourists wouldn't know what constituted marine beauty. They accept whatever they are told - but not always.
It’s a bit like, for example two hundred years ago in 1807 someone saying, “there is a beautiful forest around the southern harbour in Sydney which will vanish and be replaced by a city.” We know this has occurred only because of the art that remains in galleries and collections today. Will it be similar with the GBR?
A good idea, underwater panoramic photographs (to avoid wide angle distortion) of coral reef for the future?
Photograph under the surf zone, and deeper, on the weather side of reefs where tourist boats avoid. The best hard corals are there, especially on the very outside edge of the GBR.
