The April Manila weather can be downright unrelenting; it’s one of those months when the Metro area takes flame — a sea of swelter as I got off the train station and walked all the way to Starbucks Mckinley.

I entered the café and waited, contemplating on playing with the donut on my table. Then Scott “Gutsy” Tuason swept in, looking as if he just performed at a sold out Woodstock.

Decked in a grey shirt, aviator shades and faded jeans, he had a solid rock and roll element - dark careless curls, long, lean muscles, a deep tan and a shining smile like the sun. A striking presence, impossible to miss. If Tuason were a rocker, he would have a horde of moon-eyed groupies trailing behind him.

He’s no guitar wizard, but rocks out exquisitely with a Nikon D3x camera, making waves, literally undersea.

He walked over to the table in long, sure strides and we talked about an ocean of things. I asked him questions and he answered in a tone that reminded me of Eddie Vedder.

Tuason is an award winning underwater photographer, conservationist, globe trekker, travel writer, photojournalist and jack-of-all-trades.

He has authored three coffee table books: Anilao; the self-published Bahura; A passage through Philippine Reefs; and the Ultimate Orient: Philippine South Sea Pearls.

Books filled with sublime images so beautiful, it almost hurts to look. To which he smiled and said, quite simply, “I just want to show people what’s there. I don’t really have a hand in the magic there.”

His first book, Anilao, which he co-authored with Eduardo Co-Unjieng, won the grand prize at the World Festival Underwater Images in France and it also bagged the “the best photography book award” at the Philippine National Book Awards in 2000.

“Winning that award was pretty cool, going to France to receive that award; it was like the equivalent of the Oscars or the Cannes Film Festival, but for underwater,” Tuason said.

“But awards are very subjective; it’s just a bonus on top of everything else if you get an award. Usually, the key is to love what you’re doing.”

He has a musical streak after all.

“I’m working on a new book right now, I’m going to tie in music with the ocean, but without putting a CD in the book,” he said. “I’m going to tie it visually through the lyrics. Get some songs that would fit. The chapters would not be Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, but more of the classics, the standards. It’s due for a November release.“

Asked about his philosophy on taking pictures, Tuason replied, “I try to shoot things that haven’t been presented before, or I try and shoot common things but present it in a way that hasn’t been presented before, I look for ways to present it in a new light.”

Keys to Eden

One common theme in all his photographs is that the wild creatures almost seem unfazed and quite happy to pose for him. He’s taken shots of a shark with its teeth exposed who seemed to be grinning at him, a clown fish looking straight at the camera, a turtle looking sideways straight at the lens and clusters of fish in dizzying patterns.

“It’s a lot of hard work. A lot of times I just hold my breath. The creatures are scared when you exhale, scared at the sound of bubbles, I also read a lot of books about animal behavior, what they like, what they don’t like. What scares. I’m always lurking underwater. The last thing you want to do is to chase; if you chase something, it goes away. A lot of times I just wait,” Tuason said.

“Fish have a habit of giving you the tail; they don’t want to face you. Once in a while they turn around to look at you, and that’s the time I’m hopeful and ready, to take a picture of head-on shots, which is the most difficult to film.”

“I can lurk for about an hour to 90 minutes, it depends on what I’m shooting. If it’s a really difficult subject, like a school of fish, I find a pattern. Shooting a school of fish can be chaotic. You’ve got to wait for them to go one way. With whale sharks, you have to kind of swim with them, so that they don’t get scared,” he said.

The List

Tuason has traveled the world: shot the Aurora Borealis in Alaska; swam with the Humpback whales in Tonga; submerged with 16-foot sharks (Tigers and Hammerheads) in the Bahamas.

“I choose the places I go to, I freelance . . . I usually pay for everything myself.”

So what’s the hard part?

“Getting paid by some people is a struggle, a lot of people think that I’m on a vacation when I go out shooting but it’s a lot of work, you know. I don’t have a lot of time to rest, I’m always in the water and when I get back in the boat or back at the resort, It’s usually downloading photos or fixing camera gear, fixing equipment again then getting ready to go back out, waking up really early and doing it all over again.”

It’s a lifelong passion for him.

“Oh, I’ll never retire,” he said.

Rock on.

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