Czech photographer Michal Štros spent two decades in laboratories before turning his lens full-time to the sea — and his science shows. The former molecular biologist, who holds a PhD and once developed rapid virus detection methods during the pandemic, has just published Underwater Magic, a 168-page bilingual coffee-table hardback that's already earning rave reviews from the dive press.
Štros took up diving in the late 1990s on a holiday to Australia's Great Barrier Reef, and underwater photography grew from there into a serious pursuit. When pandemic travel restrictions grounded him, he used the downtime to rework his archive and experiment with modified vintage lenses underwater — work that appeared in DIVE magazine in 2023. In 2024 he finally left research behind to focus on photography.
The book is organised into five chapters. Macro is the biggest, with 15 subsections each devoted to a specific creature or location. The others cover Underwater Art, Vintage Lenses, Natural Textures and Magic Tools — the last exploring magic tubes and creative filters — plus an appendix laying out the equipment and techniques behind the images. Standout examples include portraits of mantis shrimp, boxfish, lionfish, ornate ghost pipefish, sea slugs and feather stars shot against colourful reef backdrops.
Štros also champions muck diving, the now-mainstream practice of hunting tiny, bizarre critters in shallow sandy seabeds that were once dismissed as wasteland. His tips for shooting there are practical: use a snoot to restrict strobe light to the subject, blur the distracting sandy floor with a wide aperture, or build artificial backgrounds lit in white or colour. Where a background can't be fixed in camera, he edits it — producing dreamlike collages, some of which deliberately link the underwater world to outer space.
For travelling divers and underwater photographers, this is equal parts inspiration and technique manual. If you've ever floated over a featureless slope wondering why everyone is staring at the sand, Štros' work explains exactly what you're missing — and how to photograph it.
Underwater Magic is available from Štros' own website at michalstros.cz, priced €32 plus shipping.
Story via Dive Magazine.
