The First Underwater Portrait

This picture of Romanian oceanographer Emil Racovitza in his underwater diving suit was taken in 1899. From what we know of photography in that era, cameras were large and fragile, and subjects had to sit for a long exposure to let enough light in. How did they manage that underwater? Photographer pioneer Louis Marie Auguste Boutan, who took the picture, had to invent the equipment to do it -and the underwater flash machine he came up with was thoroughly dangerous, yet it did the job. Read about the tech that went into the first underwater portrait at PetaPixel.