Thank you for visiting heroes of the deep, my name is Simon Newbound. I am a Submarine veteran, a submariner, and I served on all classes of Submarine during my career in the Royal Navy. I created this website “Heroes of the Deep”.

I have, since 2003, been a Professional Photographer, a career I have developed during my two Guinness world record challenges that took me around the world, a total circumnavigation of the earth by the widest axis, visiting many beautiful countries. Indeed some would say a “World Record Adventure Challenge” is the perfect antidote to many years sailing the seas beneath the waves of the world’s oceans on Hunter Killer Submarines.

From time to time, I would be invited to take professional photographs of their submarines when arriving or leaving the Bay of Gibraltar. A herculean honor for me, as you could imagine, especially as I often know members of the crew who are serving on the submarines today.

The pre photoshoot routine is that I would be invited to a safety brief shortly before the arrival of the Submarine. On completion of the brief, I would then be informed what time I was to embark on a Tug to meet the arriving or departing Submarine. Usually, it would be before sunrise, which was perfect for me, as I always dream of the perfect shot a royal navy submarine, dolphins jumping the bow, the rising sun over the magnificent Rock of Gibraltar, whilst on the sea on the sea straights of Gibraltar.

Once onboard the tug I would introduce myself self the Tug Captian and inform him of the direction of sunrise, time of sunrise, and the position I would like him to place his boat. we would depart Gibraltar for the rendezvous and typically transit for one or two hours to the meet area.

During the sail to rendezvous area, I would prepare my equipment, a Canon 5D MK III and a Canon 6D. The Canon 5D I would add the zoom lens a 70mm – 200mm, and on the Canon 6D, I would add the 24 – 74mm Lenz both incredible lenses by Canon. I would check my batteries, check my sd cards, and clean the lenses.

Having been a submariner for many years, especially one, who has also spent a lot of my time working on the casing of a submarine, I know precisely, exactly the type of images the commanding officer, the crew, and P.R. Team in Gibraltar and U.K. would like.

I would typically take over 300 images in one session. My goal was to edit my photos in Adobe Lightroom, export them back to a USB, and get all the pictures to the Commanding Officer of the visiting Submarine before the boat sailed from Gibraltar. For anybody who has a passion for photography editing over 300 images from a Sea shoot is especially time demanding as the ambient light is never consistent. A copy of the images would go to MOD P.R. Gibraltar and MOD P.R. UK and the best images I would send to Navy News.

Finally, I would take my favorite image, have it speedily printed, then framed at 70cm x 50cm. I would dispatch it to the Submarine Commanding Officer base so it would be waiting for him when his boat sailed into port. This gift, as you can imagine, was always a big and precious surprise for the C/O.

From the thank you letters I received from each Commanding Officer expressing how wonderful it is to have such a beautiful memento of their visit to the magnificent Rock of Gibraltar.

As I said previously, it is an incredible honor to shoot our Heroes of the Deep, members of the Royal Navy Submarine Service, the silent service, and I would do it again if ever asked, in a heartbeat.