Below you find exemples of the 80 successful expeditions lead by Magnus Lundgren. All the trips always have different goals, and some are true exploring into marine wilderness, while other places have such great photography opportunties that they must be visited several times.

BLACK WATER PHOTOGRAPHY
in Balayan Bay, Anilao, Philippines

This week was set-up for "Black water photography". Even if we did a "bonfire" shoot one evening, and day dives when we had energy, the overall focus was real black water photography with a serious light set-up and a great team of spotters. We had targets like blanket octopus, flying fish, diamond squid, oarfish and paper nautilus and more and we bagged pretty much everything expect oarfish and larger blankets.

On luxury liveaboard from Male to Addu

Deep South. Onboard the luxury live-aboard Cape Diem with photo enthusiasts and ocean lovers. We cruised through a dreamy coral kingdom, diving our way down south. Magnus had a photography workshop onboard for the guests. We timed this trip for peak shark season and experienced walls of grey reef sharks, whale sharks at night, hammerheads, tiger sharks, blacktip and whitetip reef sharks and much much more. The whole trip was a great success.

Addu. We explored one of the best and most photogenic cleaning stations in all the Maldives with the Addu legend Marc Kouwenberg. The manta traffic is steady all year around, and with Marc we could tap into some real local wisdoms. Apart from manta trains Addu presented great reefs, a big wreck and thrilling caverns as well a great island feeling with real locals, small stores and restaurants. Diving around cleaning stations take a bit of practise and understanding how to use a reef hook and line for closer encounters with the mantas and to protect reefs from damage.

THE WORLD'S BIGGEST ANIMAL
Sri Lanka coastline

Together with an experienced team we went out far off shore to look for the biggest animal that ever roamed our planet. In small teams, 3 to 4 people in each boat, we were able to get close to the powerful and fast moving blue whale. What an experience to swim togeather with these whales. It was very tough with 6 to 10 hours in the sun, sometimes the sea was not very gentle, and to say the least it was pretty easy to fall asleep in the evening.

Sri Lanka is a diverse and interesting destination with many options for topside wildlife safari in the national parks. It is the best place in the world to spot leopards. So it is highly recommended to extend the stay in Sri Lanka for other activites. We plan to go back so mail us if you are interested.

ALASKA WILDERNESS
Prince William Sound

We started out from Valdez on the trip into wild Alaska. What an exciting place for wildlife photographers.

Glaciers, brown bear, black bear, Stellar sealions, spawning salmon species, bald eagles, otters all enjoyed from a lodge situated in a temperate rainforest. We actually went to Prince William sound to photograph the elusive salmon shark only to discover that the sharks left for the season due due two consecutive storms at the second half of the prime season. We were happy that there were som many other things going on apart from the missing sharks.

COLD WATER EXTRAVAGANZA
Hurst Island, British Columbia, Vancouver Island, Canada

This is considered to be one of the best cold water diving areas on the planet. And after Magnus visit there he can definitely agree with that statement. The resort is hidden in a small bay full of marine critters and the archipelago around Hurst Island is offering a marine life hard to compare with anything else with subjects like giant octopuses, wolf eels, hooded nudibranchs, chimaeras, Stellar sealions, coral gardens and much much more.

THE PACIFIC OCEAN'S SHARK ISLAND
Cocos Island, National Park, Pacific Ocean, Costa Rica

Raja Ampat & Lembeh Strait on the same trip

Raja Ampat - The world's richest coral reefs. This is such a love place for photography. In Raja Ampat we are at the epicentre of the coral triangle with more coral and fish variety than anywhere else in the World. We ventured into wide angle photography in manta cleaning stations and over endless coral reefs and we met carismatic animals like mantas, wobbegongs and huge schools of colorful fish. Magnus have led trips to resorts and live-aboard and both versions are actually good in different ways.

Lembeh Strait - Outstanding muck diving. After Raja Ampat the flights often stop in Manado and it is great with a second week with great muck diving. The dive sites there have the most stunning critters like hairy octopus, mandarin fish, pygmy seahorse, harlequin shrimp, mimic octopus, boxer crab, Coleman shrimp, frogfish of all size from thumbnail-sized until giant hairy ones. Here we work on our creative macro photography skills.

      

Target was the elegant, fast swimming Atlantic sailfish, Istiophorus albicans. First was to find them and then we tried to stay close enough to get images of them when they were hunting. Either it was very hard work or siesta time.

We used the skipper and boat that was used for BBC "Blue Planet" and invested in five days to make a serious attempt. We had one "no-action-at-all" day, one day was barely OK, two days were good and our last day was fantastic. All images were shot while free diving. We arranged for small tanks with back packs to be available be we never used them.

Fidel Castro have protected a string of islands and reefs on the southern side of Cubas main island. Jardines de la Reina is exclusive to only a few divers per year. When we visitied the queen's reefs we realise that Jardines de la Reina is problably an example of how all Carribean reefs flourished a long time ago. Jardines de la Reina feels like a ancient  time capsule boiling with life .

Sharks are very abundant. It is mainly silky sharks and carribean reef sharks often seen in great numbers and close up on almost all dives. But it is the big picture, the overall scene, that is most impressive with Jardines healthy and unbleached reefs, the great schools of tarpons, huge groupers and barracudas. The overall diversity and biomass is striking. In the lush mangroves around the islands we got the opportunity to dive with a Cuban crocodile.

    

MANTA MAGIC IN THE MALDIVES

When the manta action picked up, same day as the full moon, then it was absolutely mind blowing experience. Trains of mantas, carousels of mantas, manta rays doing the washing machine-like roll, everywhere there were suddenly mantas and it kept going on for three days. The rays where behaving like flocks of gigantic birds in a underwater planktonic feeding frenzy. It was a unique trip, to a unique place on a very unique moment.