Tomasz Stachura the third Pole with a cover in a foreign issue of National Geographic

The well-known mosaic of the Swedish wreck of the Mars, photographed by Tomasz Stachura, has been featured on the covers of foreign issues of the National Geographic magazine in Germany and Sweden. The whole situation is worth noting as a great success, as it is only the third time in the history of the magazine that a photograph by a Polish photographer has been on the cover of an issue from another country.

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For the past two years, the mosaic of the wreck of this legendary Swedish ship has been a source of admiration around the world. Consisting of about 650 photographs (selected from over 1200!), the whole is a true work of art, whose level of difficulty and full dimension can be understood only by those who know what underwater photography on deep wrecks is all about.

For it is one thing to dive to 70m, quite another to dive repeatedly to 70m with a camera and to take a few hundred photographs, with which you then have to struggle for hundreds of hours in a graphics programme to put them together like elements of a jigsaw puzzle. No wonder that for this combination of hard work, talent and extraordinary skills Stachura has been honoured with this extraordinary distinction (which he himself calls his Mount Everest), which is the cover of a foreign issue of National Geographic. Before him, only Tomasz Tomaszewski and Marcin Jamkowski had climbed this “mountain”.

All of you who have had the opportunity to get acquainted with Tomek’s works so far know that he does great behind the lens. Regardless of whether it is a wreck of the “Breeze” or the “Mars”, this guy is able to show the vessels in such a light that it makes you want to go diving. Recognition from National Geographic only confirms the position he has gained over the years, also abroad.

“Poland has made a great contribution to this project since 2012, we have significantly supported it from the very beginning both in terms of diving and equipment. Generally, Polish divers are known in the world as experts in technical diving – they specialise both in wreck penetration and exploration of difficult and deep caves. In the Mars project, we were treated as a team for special tasks; when it was necessary to “enter” a wreck or take structural pictures, e.g. from underneath, a Polish team was sent. Our mosaic showed Mars in such a way that anyone, even a layman, could see it practically as if they were standing on their hands,” explains the owner of Santi.

In October, the Mars Project received a National Geographic grant, which will make it possible to create a 3D reconstruction of the object in the coming year. This will be done using materials collected from the very beginning of the exploration. As a result, in some time we will receive a digitally reproduced version of the wreck with all its details.

Source: tvn24.pl Photo: stachuraphoto.com