Who is Els Van Den Borre ?
Els Van Den Borre was born in 1975 in Belgium, Ninove.
As a baker's daughter she spent much of her toddler years on the lap of her godfather.
But it soon became clear that Els was someone with not only beautiful blonde but also wild blonde hair.
Her childhood was so mainly characterized by a broken wrist, torn ligaments and numerous of other visits to the doctor.
Only at the age of 22 she first gained pleasure in going to water.
But during the subsequent summer vacations diving or even swimming in open water without a life jacket was not an option.
In November 2004, after two dive attempts in a swimming pool, they finally could convince Els to make an introductory scuba dive in the open sea.
And yes, the first big step was set. Once back in Belgium, together with her husband Bruno Van Saen, she became member of a CMAS Nelos diving school.
Less than a year later she was shooting photos underwater for the very first time.
Just before participating her first underwater photo competition she exchanged the Fuji FinePix F30 compact camera for a Nikon D90 DSLR camera.
Result: a third place in the international underwater shootout competition HUGYCUP in 2009.
A first place and a second place in 2010 and the big winner of the HUGYCUP 2011.
Meanwhile, for Els underwater photography became a real passion.
Her patience is probably her greatest asset. Els can easily spend up to 100 minutes, or even more, with that one particular animal
to capture the picture she has in mind.
In recent years, Els achieved excellent results in underwater photography competitions,
and this not only in her home country Belgium but also at international level, with victories in France, Switzerland and the United States.
Together with her husband, who is also her loyal buddy, she could already enter twice the podium of the biggest competition in the world
for underwater videography and underwater photography: the World Festival of Underwater images in Marseille.
In 2011, Bruno Van Saen and Els Van Den Borre received already an award for their diaporama 'Mixed Waters',
but in 2012 they received the first prize and the ‘Golden Diver’ award with their diaporama ‘Gentle Giants’.
Her biggest reward so far she probably got in September 2013 with her photo called ‘mouth full’. This photo was not only the Grand Prize winner of the Scuba Diving Magazine photo contest but was also nominated in the Benelux National Geographic Photo Contest. Many of her underwater pictures were already published in magazines like Scuba Diving Magazine (United States), Aquamonde (France), Duiken & Duikmagazine (The Netherlands), EZDive(China), Submerge (South-Africa), Tauchen (Germany) and Hippocampus (Belgium). And, never the less you can find many of her award winning photographs on advertising leaflets and on the internet or World Wide Web.
The Zeeland waters of the neighboring Netherlands are dived by Els as CMAS 1* instructor.
Here she takes care of many starting divers or the more or less experienced divers who are in training for a higher diving certificate.
When Els is not diving, she's probably at home in her private practice. There she works as a physiotherapist, power-plate instructor and specialist acupuncture.
In her underwater images she tries to capture the purity of marine life. Total unedited images get her preference.
And preferably and especially the smallest creatures of our oceans.
Portfolio
