Photo by Rivqa Rafael

In a lovely bit of synchronicity, we took our kids to the aquarium a week or two before I reviewed Inner Space for COSMOS Magazine. So I was delighted to see Ron and Valerie Taylor mentioned in the timeline at the top of the shark enclosure, as it gave me some context before I started my DVD marathon.

The Taylors started their joint career as spearfishing champions in the 1950s before moving to a more conservationist approach, photographing and filming marine life instead of killing it. They contributed a great deal to marine science and species conservation.

The footage for Inner Space was taken from roughly the middle of their career, so it was interesting to see what they were doing right before they advised Spielberg on Jaws. Some of the footage in the doco made my greenie heart cringe a little, but in context it wasn’t that bad. Their positive attitudes more than made up for the slightly grainy footage and all the things we wouldn’t do these days.

My review is up on COSMOS Online now and there’s a competition on the COSMOS Facebook page to win a copy of the DVD.