My name is Elly Jeurissen and I was born in the Netherlands in 1959. I'm married to Bert, we have a son and a daughter and since 4th January 2013 a little grandson!
I dive since 2006. Before than I did a lot of snorkeling, but taking the plunge was something else. It took me about 5 years before I effectively start a dive course. That was in the Maldives.
After a whole year of no diving, my husband and I joined a local dive club in 2007, to refresh and improve our diving skills.
It was in this club that other members start pushing us to go diving in Dutch waters. My first reply to that was: "why should I bother to go diving in cold, pea soup like water?". But our friends were persistent enough, so we decided to give it a try and join for a weekend at the Dutch coast. We rented our dive gear and went to Zeeland with our dive club.
I never forget my first dive there…. Okay, it was cold, but the visibility was not as bad as I had expected and I was astonished about the diversity under water! Not as colorful as in warm, tropic waters, but still very beautiful.
Well, that was that than…. We were addicted! Very soon we bought our own dive gear and now we dive regularly in nearby fresh water lakes, in old stone mine lakes in Belgium, or at the Dutch coast.
That is, we dive regularly during the summer, from May up to October. From then water temperature is falling to about 4° Celsius. We don't have a dry suit and diving in a wet suit in this temperature is too much for me, brrrr!
Since we are licensed divers, we have been diving in the Maldives, Egypt, Bali, Sulawesi, Bonaire, Oman and the Philippines.
My first UW photographing I did with my husband's little compact camera, a Panasonic DMC-TZ1, in 2009. But I only took a few shots. I was enjoying the UW-world too much to be distracted by a camera….
But slowly my interest in photography grew, as well under water as above, and in 2010 I bought my own camera, a Canon G11 in a Canon WP-DC34 UW-housing. Then, after "drowning" the G11, I got a G12 instead in 2012.
I have long resisted the use of an external strobe because I didn't like the heavy lugging but more and more I got to the conclusion that the only way to improve my photography, was by buying a strobe.
And so I did in October 2012. I got a Sea & Sea YS-01. Unfortunately my first experiences with this strobe were very short. After a few dives in Bali in November it broke completely and so did my flash diffuser for the UW-housing, so using the internal flash had no use either. I've had a good chance in Bali to practice photographing in ambient light :.
Meanwhile the manufacturer has replaced the broken strobe by a new one.
Now I can catch up with building up my UW-photography skills, because as a newbie I still have to learn a lot. But I love the trying and experimenting and I hope that one day I can measure my photos with those of the other great pro's that have published their stunning work here already.
