Deep underwater in the Caribbean Sea, a nurse shark is gliding over a coral reef. It’s being watched by two divers drifting nearby: he’s tall, athletic, slightly balding, and she has chestnut-coloured, Rapunzel-like hair. They could be anyone, but actually, these explorers have blood as blue as the ocean.
They are the future king and queen of England; the current Prince and Princess of Wales. But here, suspended in the sea, they’ve swapped regalia and tiaras for wetsuits and oxygen tanks. Yes, dear reader, this really happened.
Last year, and Kate went diving with sharks in Belize. It might have been one of the most modern and surprising royal moments in recent history. Accompanying them on this adventure was a man: long-haired, rugged-looking, camera in hand.
His name? Matt Porteous, an ocean and wildlife photographer from Jersey whose ‘side hustle’ has been capturing the Wales family for seven years. Perhaps his story has come full circle. It all started on the surf in his teens, when he first got hold of a waterproof camera and began photographing the crashing waves on the beaches of Jersey.
‘I started capturing what I saw while I was surfing,’ he says. ‘[As a child] I felt that I wasn’t good at expressing myself. I didn’t have a lot of things to say to people.
I used photography as a way to express how I saw the world. I was always the one with the camera, taking pictures of my friends and my life. I saw things a bit differently.
’ And now, his world .