Who am I?

My name is François Baelen. I'm a french underwater photographer currently living in Reunion Island, in the western Indian Ocean. I'm working there as a general practitioner, with a degree in Hyperbaric medicine. However, I spend most of my free time underwater with my camera and one goal: to share with you my passion for the amazing marine life, from tiny nudibranchs to giant whales.

Since April 2018, I've been using a Sony A7III camera in a Nauticam Housing. My macro setup includes Sony FE 90 mm macro lens and several wet lenses: SMC1 and Moby from Noodilab. My wide angle setup includes Sony-Zeiss 16-35 mm lens with a N120 dome, and a Canon 8-15 mm fisheye lens with metabones adaptator. To bring back warm colors underwater, I'm using 2 Inon Z330 strobes on TTL mode, with s-TTL from trt-electronics.

On this website you can find pretty much all my pictures and videos.

For any business inquiries or if you are interested in purchasing a picture, feel free to use the “contact” section, I will answer you as soon as I can.

Happy bubbles!

Rewards… so far!

• Reunion Island Underwater Festival 2018 : Silver Whale

• Scubaverse monthly edition : november 2018 : 1st and 3rd places

• Scubaverse annual selection : 1st place

• Ocean Art 2019 : 1st place wide angle ; 3rd place behaviour

• UnderWater Photographer of the Year 2019: 1st place wide angle

• FEISME 2019 : 2nd place portfolio

• Festisub 2019 : 2nd place ocean duo

• FISM New Caledonia 2019 : 2nd place portfolio ; 3rd place macro

• Festival de l’eau delà 2020 : 1st B&W ; 2nd macro ; 1st wide angle

• Cimasub 2020 : 1st place portfolio

• F3O 2020 : 1st place wide angle and 1st place macro