BIOGRAPHY
Ivana Orlović Kranjc, underwater photographer, model and PADI Staff Instructor.
Born in the center of the Balkan Peninsula in Belgrade, Serbia, hundreds of miles away from the sea, it was almost incredible to foresee that Ivana Orlović Kranjc would choose to make the sea her passion, home and workplace.
She finished her first diving course at the age of eight, and since then her commitment and connection to the sea has become greater and greater each day. In the meantime, she finished college and earned a degree in Marketing and Sales. She started with recreational diving followed by her first professional assignments and apnea competitions. She then became a diving instructor and it all culminated in her greatest passion of all – underwater photography.
Diving expeditions have taken her all over the globe. She has been diving at the merging point of two oceans in South Africa accompanied by great white sharks, at surreal underwater locations in the Maldives, explored caves in Bosnia for the endemic Olm species, swam with whale sharks in the Indian Ocean, danced with Conger eels on the Island of Vis in the Adriatic Sea, submerged beneath frozen Alpine lakes, pet Morey eels in the Red Sea… with still so many more adventures to come.
Besides the adventuring part of her diving career, Ivana and her husband own and run the biggest diving club in Serbia – S.D.T. Svet Ronjenja - which trains new generations of scuba divers every year. There is a constant education in underwater photography and apnea as well. Through this continuous education S.D.T. Svet Ronjenja attempts to raise the question of water pollution, constantly working on questions of ecology and preserving nature, because this planet will be home for many generations to come.
Over the last ten years, Ivana has been dedicated to underwater photography. Everything started with a disposable underwater camera, followed by compact cameras in underwater housings, and finally now in recent years with DSLRs. Today, Ivana uses a Nikon D810 and Nikon D7000 in Subal housing. Her specialties are underwater selfies with inhabitants of the underwater world and her great split images.
“After all these years that I have spent under the surface, I can’t imagine diving without a camera. I think that underwater photography is the most powerful way to promote this amazing world to common people, non divers. I am certain that after they see my photographs they will be more eager to come with us on our new adventures beneath the surface of the water” says Ivana Orlović Kranjc, underwater photographer.