Into the deep blue yonder

Born in America in 1946, David Doubilet began snorkelling at the age of eight; by the age of 13 he was taking his first underwater photographs with a pre-war Leica in the sea off the New Jersey coast - little wonder he's now acclaimed as the world's leading underwater photographer.

Having studied photography at Boston University, he published his first pictures in National Geographic in 1972 and has continued to do so regularly since then, bringing stunning images back from beneath the oceans of the world.

We've put together our favourite Doubilet images in the gallery above. Flick through the photographs and plunge into a richly colourful and awe-inspiring land of seldom seen species and vegetation.