Getting up close and personal with whales is all part of Ross Isaacs's day job, writes Robyn Rankin

Who could have predicted that a dive course in the Tweed River 34 years ago would lead to working with David Attenborough and being immersed in the humpback songs in Hawaii and Alaska? But it did and when cinematographer and passionate conservationist Ross Isaacs lists them as highlights, you know it’s been an amazing journey.

“I look at it as being one of the peak experiences of my career and of my life,” Ross says.

Fire to Ice is the film that brought it together and it’s hard to imagine where to from here for the Port Douglas-based filmmaker. The film’s genesis was seven years ago when Ross was filming humpbacks for Above and Below Maui (which incidentally featured Bo Derek) and earned him an Emmy nomination.

Since then, filming has continued at the two extremes of the volcano-laden islands of Hawaii and the iceberg-laden waters off Alaska. Ross says filming was timed around the seasons and known whale behaviour, with an estimated 16 expeditions to the two extremes to complete the work.

Some of the greatest few moments of his life have been diving under icebergs in Alaska and capturing, in some cases for the first time on film, specific animal behaviour.

“It’s the most amazing experience to see 10 40-foot humpbacks co-op feeding on herrings,” he says.

But perhaps one of the highlights was diving with a little scuba tank and feeling absorbed by the sounds and reverberation of a singing humpback from just a few metres away.

“It just vibrates through your whole body,” he says. “The sound was extraordinary, much like standing next to a speaker at a rock concert. The song seemed to engulf me, I could feel it in the air spaces of my body, shaking the very flesh on my bones. It was me and the whale all alone surrounded by the big blue of the Pacific Ocean. It somehow
seemed surreal.”

And then there’s the great man of natural history cinematography, David Attenborough, who narrated the film.

“I wrote six versions of the script, we handed it over to him and he wrote four pages of revisions so he could speak it in ‘David-speak’. But he doesn’t drive and he doesn’t email, so we sent a limo to pick him up and we had him for three hours and he did it almost faultlessly,” Ross says. “He’s the most amiable, lovely person. It feels like there’s this presence, a bit like
your grandfather.”

While Fire to Ice is about to air on television screens this month, Ross also is working on a cinema version.

His other projects include Secrets of the Great Barrier Reef, Experience Australia in a different light, French television series Carnets de Plongee, Above & Below Maui, television series Dream Boat, Action Asia, Untamed Australia, Hidden Films #2, Ocean Girl series 1-4, World Heritage Documentary Series, American TV series 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Japanese feature film Acri, First Strike film with Jackie Chan, Canadian children’s natural history documentary television series Kratt’s Kreatures, 60 Minutes, Breathing Space, Encounters with Whales, BBC series Sea Trek, Return of the Leviathan, Cyberdiver, children’s films Bubbles and Share This World, and an Australia Post issued stamp in 2004.

He knows his life of tripping around the world getting up close and personal with some of the planet’s most awe-inspiring creatures is a good one.

“My work is my fun,” he laughingly acknowledges.

The 50 year old had a fascination for the sea from an early age, possibly stemming from fishing trips with his father in a small boat. But at the age of 16 he did his dive course and a year later first took a camera underwater with him.“As a photographer I wanted to bring back images of what I saw under the sea to show other people,” he says. “It’s such an unusual environment and it just held a fascination for me, what was mysteriously under
the surface.”

While Ross says he does eat fish he could “never get into killing things”. He’s not formally involved with any conservation movements but he sees his work as a way of promoting the cause and showing people why our precious environment is worth preserving. And with more than 30 years and thousands of hours’ diving the world’s seas, he is well placed to comment on
his observations.

“It’s hard to perceive this slow degradation over the generations … it’s just a gradual degradation,” he says. “You’d probably visit some areas 20 years ago and they’d be teeming with fish. You’d see 20 or 30 or 50 coral trout and today you might see three or four. It’s a subtle decay but in other areas you see big areas of degradation, where the reefs are suffocating from nutrient flow. Everyone needs to be a conservationist. There’s no excuse for people denying that involvement.”

Why is he based at Port Douglas? “Well, I’m in such proximity to the Great Barrier Reef, which is my own second office, really.” And how would he, who has dived all over the world, describe its condition? “I think we are blessed with some of the nicest coral reefs that are in relatively pristine condition.”

He should know.

Fire to Ice is a journey, following a mother and calf on their perilous path across the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii to Alaska and back. It is a journey from active volcanic islands in Hawaii to icy Alaska, hence the title. Like the film, Ross’ own life is a journey taking him all over the world but always home to Far North Queensland.

Fire to Ice airs on ABC 1 on Sunday, November 16, at 7.30pm. 

 

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