Stew Smith

Forum username: stewsmith
Location: Southampton, UK and Sinai, Egypt
Posts: 1,485 across 894 threads (210 started)
Active years: 2005—2018 (peak 2010)
Camera: Canon 5D Mark II, 7D Mark II, 7D
Housing: Sea & Sea and Nauticam
Primary forums: Photo/Video Showcase (29%), Trip Reports and Travel (24%), General Chat (11%), Shooting Technique/Workflow/Editing (10%), Photography Gear and Technique (9%)
Comments left: 22 on Wetpixel articles
Specialization: Red Sea and Egypt diving, Bahamas shark photography, Lembeh macro, snooting technique, UK diving community, marine conservation

Community Role

stewsmith, known as Stew, was a dual-based underwater photographer splitting his time between Southampton, UK and Sinai, Egypt. This gave him an unusual perspective — deeply connected to both the UK diving community and the Red Sea dive scene. His forum distribution is distinctive: Photo/Video Showcase and Trip Reports together account for over half his posts (53%), making him one of the most travel-and-image-focused contributors in the community.

With 1,485 posts across 894 threads — averaging just 1.7 posts per thread — Stew was a broad contributor rather than a deep-thread debater. He started an unusually high 210 threads, reflecting someone who actively brought topics to the community rather than only responding to others.

His peak activity came during 2008—2011 (284, 329, 378, and 215 posts respectively), coinciding with the boom in affordable DSLR underwater setups. He shot Canon systems (5D Mark II, 7D, 7D Mark II) in Sea & Sea and Nauticam housings.

Stew’s conservation engagement (69 posts, 5%) was driven by his proximity to Red Sea issues — shark attacks at Sharm El Sheikh, diving suspensions, and environmental threats to Egyptian dive sites. His copyright awareness (11 posts in the Copyright Issues forum) reflected the concerns of a traveling photographer whose images were at risk of misuse.

Notable Contributions

Red Sea and Egypt

• Diving suspended in Sharm El Sheikh due to shark attack (115 replies) — Started this breaking news thread on December 1, 2010, reporting that the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism had suspended all diving and watersports in Sharm El Sheikh following three separate shark attacks on Russian tourists. The thread became the community’s primary discussion hub, with Alex Mustard and others contributing. The shark was identified as an adult oceanic whitetip (^[1])
• Elphinstone and the Brothers — Egypt (37 replies) — Started this October 2008 travel planning thread seeking information on oceanic whitetip shark presence at Elphinstone Reef and the Brothers Islands. Community member timmoranuk noted that only six longimanus were resident the previous season, raising concerns that absentees may have been caught (^[2])
• Oceanics at Elphinstone — Shark encounter reporting (^[3])
• Oceanic whitetips Egypt — Species-specific discussion (^[4])
• Egypt trip report — Detailed travel documentation (^[5])
• Red Sea images (multiple threads) — Image sharing from his home waters (^[6], ^[7])
• Egypt as a destination — Travel advocacy (^[8])
• Full moon at Shark Reef, Ras Mo — Night dive photography at Ras Mohammed (^[9])

Bahamas Shark Photography

• Bahamas shark & dolphins 10-day trip (36 replies) — Detailed trip report from a multi-day Bahamas liveaboard experience (^[10])
• Back from the Bahamas — Trip report thread (^[11])
• Bahamas 10-day trip $2500 — Trip planning (^[12])
• Shearwater vs Dolphin Dream — Contributed to this Bahamas liveaboard comparison, engaging in a sometimes heated discussion about shark feeding safety, citing the death of Austrian diver Markus Groh in 2008 and Jim Abernethy’s shark bite incident (^[13])
• Dolphin Dream Bahamas liveaboard — Early trip planning (^[14])

Lembeh and Indonesia

• First time snooting (35 replies) — Shared his first snooting experiments from a Lembeh Strait trip in May 2010, shooting with the 100mm lens and 1.4x teleconverter with a mini Zen dome. He noted being stung by a scorpionfish during the dive, “much to the amusement of Simon Buxton.” Drew Wong and loftus praised the results (^[15])
• 2 weeks at NAD Lembeh, North Sulawesi — Extended trip report (^[16])
• Lembeh Strait — Destination discussion (^[17])
• Lembeh Cottages — Accommodation review (^[18])
• Komodo thru a macro lens and Komodo liveaboard snippet — Indonesian trip reports (^[19], ^[20])
• WAM seahorse shot from Lembeh — Image sharing (^[21])

Community Highlights

• Post your best ONE shot of 2010 (141 replies) — Started this annual community tradition thread that became one of the year’s most popular, with photographers from around the world sharing their single best image (^[22])
• Diver magazine UK (8 posts) — UK diving community discussion (^[23])
• Why buy in the UK (7 posts) — UK gear purchasing discussion (^[24])
• Diver UK cover shot — Achievement recognition (^[25])
• BSOUP meetings — British Society of Underwater Photographers community (^[26])
• Monochroming — Black and white underwater photography technique (^[27])
• Canon 5D Mark II wide-angle lens (7 posts) — Lens selection for full-frame underwater (^[28])

Conservation

• Shark warning — Red Sea safety (^[29])
• Sad news in Thailand — Environmental incident (^[30])
• Moving of critters for competition entries — Ethics discussion (^[31])
• A step in the right direction — Conservation progress (^[32])

Maldives Travel

• Nautilus 2 Maldives — Liveaboard trip report (^[33])
• Manta madness — Maldives manta encounters (^[34])
• Maldivian sunset — Topside imagery (^[35])

Activity Profile

• Thread participation: 894 threads, averaging 1.7 posts per thread
• Geographic focus: Egypt (Red Sea, Elphinstone, Brothers, Sharm), Bahamas, Maldives, Lembeh, Komodo, UK waters

References