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Underwater photographer Laurent Ballesta had a mission: To photograph massive schools of marbled grouper that gather to spawn in the Fakarava Atoll, part of French Polynesia.
The challenge? Grouper spawn only once a year under the full moon in June or July, and only for about 30 minutes, Ballesta says.
When a naturalist goes into the wild for an extended period of time, there are many things they need to bring. Air to breathe is not one of them.
So how do underwater photographers create the luxury of time you need to truly understand the environment you are exploring? Ballesta had been pondering this question for years, and in 2014, he found a solution.
Working carefully with his friend Jean-Marc Belin, he created a dive protocol that would allow him to spend a full 24 hours 65 feet under the ocean while limiting the amount of time it takes to decompress from 20 hours to just six—the first dive of its kind.
The feat required careful calibration to come up with the exact right mix of gases in his oxygen...
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