APNEA by Fred Buyle: 100 Snorkeling Photos

The book, prefaced by Sandra Bessudo, takes us to all the seas of the world, and to the geographic North Pole. It is divided into three parts: the first is devoted to the history of freediving, from traditional divers to contemporary records (until the 2011 World Championship in Kalamata). The second is devoted to “freediver” marine animals and to apnea divers evolving with them, only in the natural environment. Finally, the third part evokes in images the absolute freedom and minimal ecological impact of freediving, in total adequacy with the marine environment.

Fred Buyle has the particularity of working only in apnea, in order to limit the impact on the natural environment and to approach animals without disturbing them. Along with his work as a photographer and filming documentaries, he also puts his freediving skills at the service of field scientists to help them in their telemetry work: contribute to the marking of large marine animals, to their census and monitoring their movements. He specialized in the tagging of freediving sharks and has already been able to tag the great hammerhead shark, scalloped hammerhead sharks, lemon sharks, Galapagos sharks, as well as the great white shark. In 2004, after ten years of competition during which he obtained four world records between 1995 and 2000, and numerous victories in international competitions, he turned to underwater photography and video. Today, he divides his time between photographic reports, documentary shoots and teaching freediving.