Elise is a British underwater and topside filmmaker and photographer specialising in content-driven campaigns for wildlife and commercial projects. With a passion for highlighting endangered ecosystems, she connects audiences to nature’s significance and humanity’s relationship with it.
Elise has turned her love for the ocean into a career and harnesses cinematography to drive awareness and collaborate with NGOs and commercial enterprises motivated to drive positive environmental change.
In 2022, she exhibited her Duskys ’Til Dawn print at Alliance France Du Cap in Cape Town and was also selected for the Corona Female Creator Fund. Currently, Elise is using the Sony FX3 Cinema Line Camera, Atomos Ninja Monitor, and Nauticam underwater housing with a 230mm dome port. Her go-to lenses are the Sony 16-35mm F2.8 and the 24-70mm F4.
Elise has always spent time in the ocean, so it was a natural progression to start scuba diving. She was hooked after starting her diving journey in Malapascua, Philippines, and first took a camera underwater after she had completed her Advanced Open Water in Tofo, Mozambique.
Having dived all around the world in Africa, Indonesia, the Caribbean and Europe, she fell in love with both cold and tropical environments and wanted to document animal behaviours and rapidly changing ecosystems.
Cape Town was the perfect fit to challenge herself while completing her Divemaster due to cold temperatures, ferocious swell and regular low visibility. After years of diving there, Cape Town’s kelp forests are her favourite places to dive, and she’s always chasing the good conditions.
Elise likes to utilise her camera to capture the magical seascape when the light shines through the Great African Sea Forest, revealing gas flamed nudibranchs clinging on to rocks, superpods of dusky dolphins chasing sardines and Cape fur seals charging past, creating a stream of bubbles that almost looks like a starry night.
Southern stingray, Grand Bahamas
Shyshark, Cape Town, South Africa
Sea bamboo kelp, Cape Town, South Africa
Krill and sea bamboo kelp, Cape Town, South Africa
Green turtle, Grand Bahamas
Green turtle and remora, Grand Bahamas
Gas flame nudibranch, Cape Town, South Africa
Dusky dolphins, Cape Town, South Africa
Dusky dolphins, Cape Town, South Africa
Cold water corals, Cape Town, South Africa
Cape rock crab, Cape Town, South Africa
Cape fur seals, Cape Town, South Africa
Cape fur seal, Cape Town, South Africa
Anemones and cold water corals, Cape Town, South Africa
Find more from Elise on her website, www.elisegibbins.com, or on Instagram @elisegibbins
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