DO YOUR DIVES HAVE A BACKGROUND of green rather than aquamarine? Are you sick of those coffee-table books of underwater photographs that tantalise you with images of the colourful marine life in places you can't afford to visit?
Cool Waters - Emerald Seas by John Collins promised a rich diet of pictures of plumose and jewel anemones and dead men's fingers, but in fact the author has travelled further than I expected.
He has dived in temperate waters that include Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Tasmania, South Africa and the Canary Islands as well as Scotland and those off his native Irish coast.
The photos are well-crafted and beautifully reproduced over 174 generous pages. Not surprisingly, a lot of macro subjects are portrayed and the ease with which digital pictures can now be digitally cleansed of detritus means that they have an uncanny clarity that puts them on a par with images from the tropics. It could encourage more folk to take up diving in home waters.
John Bantin

(Atrium, ISBN 095353538). Hardback, 174pp, £19.95