Mark is back in the Maldives - Footage Requests Welcome

Mark has returned to Six Senses, Laamu Atoll out in the Maldives to capture the coral bleaching event which is now sadly underway.

Please contact mark@sharmancam.co.uk and / or emily@sharmancam.co.uk for further details should you have any footage requests.

During his stay Mark will be filming the following footage + any specific new requests for production:

  • Bleached coral reef (fixed position lapse time shots to go alongside pre-bleaching shots captured in February)

  • Seagrass meadow

  • Turtles (Hawksbill and Green)

  • Manta Rays

  • Sharks

  • Dolphins

  • Clark’s anemone fish colony

  • Cleaner station activity

Click here to view the NOAA coral reef watch bleaching heat stress maps and alert levels in the Maldives.

Maldives bleaching alert levels issued 29 April 2024

The Maldives corals bleached in 1998 and 2016 and are bleaching again now.

'Secrets Of The Penguins' coming soon...

Three years in the making, 20 years after the Academy Award-winning March of the Penguins, ‘Secrets of the Penguins’ will tell a brand new, world-first story on the charismatic, plucky and sentient birds at the other end of the Earth. Using newly developed technology, world-class scientific research and unprecedented access, National Geographic will unlock the secrets of the species that make their home in surprising and challenging landscapes around the world.

Over three episodes, the series unlocks previously untold stories and revelatory behaviors from global penguin societies, quick to feel love, hate or fear. Antarctica’s strong, powerful but sensitive emperors battle to survive on the dangerous front line of climate change. The street-smart African and little blue penguins live in cities, deserts and beyond, relying on tenacious and “talkative” adolescents to forge new paths into the unknown. Powerful modern themes emerge among the macaronis and chinstraps of wild South Georgia, from strong female leadership to diversity, crime and extreme bravery. Their moving narratives will astonish and inspire, showing penguins to be more like us than we ever realized before.

“In the Secrets series we try to forge an even more intimate and emotional connection with nature – to illuminate how these amazing creatures think, how they feel, how they communicate, how they function as complex societies and cultures”
— James Cameron

The new series will be released on Disney+ and the National Geographic channel. No release date has yet been announced, but it’s likely to be Earth Day (22 April) 2025.

'The Americas' coming soon...

Explores the wonders, mysteries, and fragilities of the Americas, the largest landmass on Earth, as well as extraordinary, untold wildlife tales that will resonate with millions of people all over the world. Narrated by Tom Hanks.

'Our Living World' Netflix

From the Emmy Award-winning team behind Our Great National Parks comes a revealing look at the secret network of connections that unites us all and sustains our planet’s most magical phenomenon: life itself. Narrated by Academy Award-winner Cate Blanchett, this docuseries spans the globe to showcase the extraordinary creatures and ecosystems, great and small, that work together to help restore and sustain Our Living World.

The underwater footage below was filmed by Mark and features in the third episode of Netflix's new wildlife documentary series "Our Living World". Cocos Island, a volcanic island in the eastern tropical Pacific about 500 km southwest of mainland Costa Rica is a known haven for endangered hammerhead sharks, but scientists still aren't sure how and why so many sharks navigate across swathes of ocean to convene there every year. Watch hammerhead sharks swim in 'cyclones' around ancient volcano below:

"We don't really know how these sharks are doing this," Ben Roy, the series producer of Our Living World, told Live Science. "We know that they've got sensors in their heads and we know that these sensors pick up on the magnetic signature of these cool volcanic rocks."

The island formed when lava erupted from an ancient underwater volcano and solidified, until it eventually rose 3,660 meters above the seabed.

The episode followed a young female hammerhead shark as she left her coastal nursery and travelled 300 miles across the Pacific Ocean to the volcanic oasis, where scientists think the sharks assemble to relax, socialize and find a mate. The female instinctively knew the way to Cocos Island thanks to electromagnetic signals emanating from hardened volcanic rocks on the island's slopes.

Maldives Archive Filming

Mark and his family have just returned from eight weeks in the Maldives where they were hosted by Six Senses, Laamu Atoll

During his stay Mark filmed the following footage:

  • Coral reef (establishing shots, fixed position lapse time shots, spawning at full moon)

  • Uninhabited tropical island (aerials from drone)

  • Seagrass meadow (including juveniles inhabitants and aerials from drone)

  • Turtles (Hawksbill and Green)

  • Manta Rays (including ultra-sound scanning)

  • Sharks

  • Dolphins

  • Clark’s anemone fish colony

Please contact mark@sharmancam.co.uk and / or emily@sharmancam.co.uk for further details should you have any footage requests. Mark will likely return to Laamu from mid-April for a follow up filming trip.

Mark was also filming for the The Maldives Underwater Initiative (MUI) a team made up of resort marine biologists and three partners, the Manta Trust, Blue Marine Foundation and the Olive Ridley Project. The MUI team pursues marine conservation goals, through research, guest education and community outreach, with the overarching aim of protecting Laamu’s natural resources.

The MUI team are based at the Sea Hub of Environmental Learning in Laamu (SHELL) which is a multi-use space, designed for education and immersive marine conservation experiences - in time, Mark’s footage will make up a set of short films which will document the MUI team’s latest projects.