Étienne Peau was a French pioneer of underwater photography, born 1877 in Le Havre, were he also attended school and made his career as oceanographic scientist and a curator of the local museum of natural history. After having studied the first book about underwater photography, written in 1900 by underwater photography pioneer Louis Boutan, he himself constructed a remote-triggered underwater camera for himself. In 1907 Peau made the first underwater shots of The Channel. For diving he constructed a new autonomous rigid diving suit and an emergency air compressor. In 1908 he wrote about his underwater photography efforts. The b/w images on this page show excerpts from the Dutch translation of his article. In 1923/24 he traveled to the sub-antarctic Kerguelen island - his travel reports lead to laws to reduce bad practices of whaleboats. After his museum job he became journalist. In 1940 he died on a ship because it was attacked and destroyed by the Germans.
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