After exploring arguably the world’s hottest dive region, Indonesia’s Bird’s Head Seascape, which includes Raja Ampat, Triton Bay and Cenderawasih Bay, and writing two guidebooks, what’s next? Well, we continue to photograph and explore uncharted sites throughout this incomparable dive destination.

During our initial explorations for the guidebooks, we really didn’t have time to concentrate on photography: Just too many reefs and not enough time. We had to amass a body of work that visually described each dive site and do it quickly. We have a bit more time now, but we’ve had to give up the luxury of being alone on a liveaboard. Today we travel with guests who expect to see the BHS’s renowned marine life at its most well known sites.

There are hundreds of sites in the BHS guidebook, yet most operators only take guests to the familiar places. We encourage everyone who travels to the BHS to stretch the limits of his or her photography by requesting at least one never-before-dived site, and sending the results to the Bird’s Head Seascape we administer for Conservation International.

Even though we, too, spend a lot of time at the most popular sites, there always seems to be something different to photograph in the BHS – jellyfish lakes, new cleaning stations, or just new angles on familiar subjects. For this Full Frame Gallery we decided to show only unpublished images, no iconic shots, nothing anyone has seen before. To see more of Burt and Maurine’s work and keep track of their explorations, please visit their Secret Sea Visions website.