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Tuesday, 7 of September of 2010

Category » John Harding

ABOUT FATHOM – IN AUSTRALIA

  1. Fathom

    was a marine diving magazine published by Gareth Powell & Associates in Australia. It is considered to have played an important role in raising international awareness of the status of Australian marine life, especially sharks with underwater photography, and established new standards in terms of quality, content, design and accurate marine journalism at a time when most was being sensationalized in the popular press.

  2. It was said to be better designed and printed than the leading USA publication, Skin Diver.

  3. “Fathom magazine was a perfect fit for its time. The 48-page publication first appeared in Sydney December 1970, produced by Gareth Powell, an eccentric, entrepreneurial British publisher who knew, above anything else, how to employ talented people and give them the freedom to work. Fathom quickly came to reflect the new scuba diving and marine environmental awareness inspired by the Save the Barrier Reef campaign, and the crown-of-thorns starfish plagues threatening coral reefs world wide”.

  4. Gareth Powell has been quoted as saying the title Fathom was one of three suggested by editor, John Harding who had canvassed the idea of publishing a dive magazine to him on three occasions. The design was similar to Surf International which was soon to cease production.
  5. A major influence on the style of the magazine was the designer, Roy Bisson. In Fathom the freelance contributing photographers and marine journalists were among the best that Australia had produced and included Ron and Valerie Taylor, Walter Starck, and John Harding. The art director (an accomplished diver) had full responsibility to choose the photographs used and to decide how they should be displayed. No other magazine company in Australia, at that time, allowed this level of involvement by their creative staff. The only person who was kept well away from the creative process was the publisher, Gareth Powell. He knew printing – and Fathom was to set new standards for the international diving world, attracting attention from many experts in this field, including the aloof Philippe Cousteau who granted an exclusive and rare interview during his Australian visit. The editorial content of the magazine was under the control of John Harding (a photojournalist and underwater film cameraman) and Roy Bisson.
  6. It was the responsibility of Harding & Bisson to devise stories, write, photograph and sell advertising and assemble all pictures rather than rely on haphazard contributions. Dive shops were initially reluctant to advertise until after issue number six.
  7. 1971 was the beginning of P.A.D.I scuba schools franchise being available to Australian dive shops.
  8. In early 1973 the magazine ceased production with issue ten and before completion of a proposed “Annual”. Various reasons contributed to the closure despite a rapidly rising circulation in Australia and USA. A plan to publish Fathom Yearbook much later was actively supported by all former advertisers.
  9. The magazine was printed in Hong Kong and later Singapore to obtain better quality than anything available in Australia.
  10. FathomOz.com will feature pages from all issues with hindsight captions and updates. Copyright applies. (Also view an alternative newer blog.  http://fathomoz.wordpress.com).

The John Harding Australian Marine Picture Library

“OUR FUTURE – AN UNKNOWN ADVENTURE”

Marine Photography: 1960 – 2010

fathom (Reg. TM, Australia)

Copyright 2005-2010 We reserve copyright for pictures, captions, text content of this web site. We own all such copyright, (or use it with permission of the credited owner). View this web site and its content using your web browser and make a temporary copy of parts of this web site for your personal use only. You may link to other sites with permission. NO commercial use without a written license and fee.

RE-USE OF CONTENT IN ANY FORM
(1) Text, captions, photos is copyright and owned by John H. Harding and may not be reprinted, republished, or otherwise redistributed without a written copyright license.
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PRINT COLLECTION – SOME SIGNED




WHALE SHARK and WHALES IN SYDNEY HARBOUR, 1968, 1966

An early morning call from an excited journalist friend, Mike Perry who was swimming at Balmoral Beach in Sydney Harbour. "There's a couple of whales, get your boat and meet me on the beach". Nobody had underwater pictures of whales in those days. I was ill prepared with a Rolleimarin camera and only slow speed B&W film. Virtually useless in the murky (in those days) harbour waters and the Rollei had a 75mm lens. I needed a 15mm lens but these were not invented yet, at least not for a Nikonos. Since then, on at least two occasions, Southern Right whales have returned to Sydney Harbour, staying for a couple of days. It would be interesting if the little calf pictured here was one of them. Better underwater pictures of this species have emerged also in the years that followed. Both National Geographic and Life magazine purchased copies from that first underwater encounter. It all happened at a time when there was no visual information on whales commonly available. People did not understand much about these creatures. A whaling company was still active at Albany, Western Australia. At first we did not know the species of whale. When the newspaper pictures appeared, a whale specialist, Dr. Bill Dawbin (Sydney University) made contact to inform us the species was on the brink of being extinct! This inspired a second news story on the front page. All credit must go to Mike Perry who spotted the whales off Balmoral Beach early that morning.

Selling pictures to magazines and newspapers was lucrative in the sixties.  Sharks proved more popular than whales – which were almost an unknown species then.

The whale shark story was bigger.  It culminated a five-day shark special being run by The Daily Mirror.  Extra newspaper pages were run containing our pictures.  Proceeds from that sale enabled me to get into making 16mm movies.   I bought two Bolex camera’s, various lens from 10mm to 150mm, tripod, underwater housing.
There was no money left for film!    TD Preece and Company (Sea Hornet) sponsored me with 3000 feet of Ektachrome, but I still had to raise money for processing months later.  Eventually it all came together.   Less than two years later I was showing a 90 minute film to USA audiences – a silent print narrated by me in person and playing recorded instrumental music as a background track.
Still strapped for cash, our poster was made from recycled printing ‘blocks’.  Getting to the USA was also expensive.  I sold my new twin 40 HP outboards to help and bought a one-way ticket to Canada with a stop on the way at San Francisco.   You could enter the USA providing there was a ticket to somewhere else where you’d be that country’s new problem.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing.  The Los Angeles shows broke-even without a profit.  Hawaii was a sell-out success, luckily.   You take risks like that when you are young.  Another show on Maui was so popular we ran a second un-advertised show at 10pm to accommodate those who could not buy tickets for the 8pm show.
Back in Australia it was the Queensland audiences who responded equally well.  By then I’d re-named Aquarius “Queensland Seafari” and followed hot on the heels of “Northern Safari” which was doing record attendances with an outback 16mm film.
(Years later I’d  be working for Northern Safari while my own film was being re-edited with new material).