Fátima Martins was born in Lisbon, Portugal on January 14th, 1965.
In 1987 she started working as a journalist for the national newspaper 'Noticias do Mar' as a freelancer, writing about the marine environment, and news regarding the ocean. She documented events above the water with her photos.
Her dream came true when she started diving in 1988, and took her first underwater photo with a Nikonos II camera, making use of natural light.
Eventually, she began using the Nikonos III, with a homemade underwater strobe.
In 1990, she received a Sea&Sea Motormarine II with the Sea&Sea strobe as a Christmas present. Later on, she took advantage of the Nikonos V with the Ikelite strobe, which she used often, including her first national competition, which took place at Sesimbra in 2000. Fátima was the first women to participate in an underwater national photography competition in Portugal.
In 1993, she became the first female national and CMAS instructor in Portugal.
In 2003 she took part in her first workshop with Kurt Amsler. She used a Hugyfot housing for the Nikonos F100, handmade by Hugy himself, which she paired with Nikonos Sb105 strobes until March 2009, when she decided to change camera, and switched to digital photography.
Since then, she has used the Nikon D700 with the Hugyfot housing, Seacam strobes and Nikon lenses. She uses wide-angle lenses (16 & 20), zoom lenses (35-17 & 28-70), macro lenses (105 & 60) and a diopter (diron7) lens.
Fátima has dived in every ocean on the planet, and has taken pictures in numerous fascinating habitats. Her first diving trips out of the country were to Fernando Noronha in Brasil and Bonaire in the Netherlands Antilles in 1991. Since then she has traveled all over the world to dive.
The most impressive destinations where she has dived were the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador, Socorro Islands in México, Gorgona Island in Colombia, the Coral Sea in Australia, Timor, Layang Layang in Malaysia, Lacadives in India and the Maldives. The most remote locations were in Pemba and Zanzibar in Tanzania, and a liveaboard from Bali to Komodo in Indonesia.
The funniest diving trip she had was in Nha Trang in Vietnam, and the unpredictable travel adventure she had to the Similan Islands in Thailand.
She has dived all over the coasts and islands of Africa. The country she likes the most is Mozambique. Nevertheless, she loves diving in her own country, which is inundated by the cold Atlantic Ocean, as well as the islands of Madeira, Porto Santo, Desertas, Selvagens and the wonderful islands of the Azores.
