Nationality Australian Name Ben Cropp | Role Filmmaker | |
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Books This Rugged Coast, Shark Hunters, Handbook for Skindivers, Whale of a Shark, Australian Skindivers Handbook Movies Cropp Family Nature Album, The Hungry Sea Awards Australian Film Institute Award Best Educational Film Nominations Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children/Youth/Family Special | ||
The Ben Cropp Collection
Benjamin 'Ben' Cropp AM (born 19 January 1936) is an Australian documentary filmmaker, conservationist and a former Open Australian spearfishing champion. Formerly a shark hunter, Cropp retired from that trade in 1962 to pursue oceanic documentary filmmaking (having produced some 150 wildlife documentaries) and conservation efforts. One of his efforts for The Disney Channel, The Young Adventurers, was nominated for an Emmy award.
Contents
- The Ben Cropp Collection
- Ben Cropps Secrets Of A Coral Cay Preview
- Personal life
- Career
- Awards
- References
Ben Cropp's Secrets Of A Coral Cay Preview
Personal life
Cropp was born on Buka Island near Bougainville Island on 19 January 1936. His father was a Methodist missionary on the island. He lived in various places such as Casino, Ballina and Bellingen, as his father moved to different parishes. He grew up at Lennox head in New South Wales. Cropp had a very religious upbringing, but when he was 18 "broke totally away from that". His first marriage was to Van Laman, which "didn't last very long". His second wife was Eva Papp, to whom Cropp was married for eight years. His third marriage was to Canadian Lynn Patterson. This marriage lasted 18 years and the Cropp's had two sons Dean and Adam. who are both making their names as top cameramen following in their father's footsteps.
As of 2007, Cropp was residing in Port Douglas, Queensland, where for twenty years he also ran a shipwreck museum. Since then Cropp has resided on his new vessel Freedom 1V, mostly in the Trinity Park marina area, when not at sea continuing his love of diving,boating, fishing, and exploring for more old shipwrecks. His "bucket list" is to find a shipwreck that pre dates Cook's 1770 as he believes one is out there.
Career
Cropp became a conservationist after an experience off Montague Island in 1964 where he filmed diver George Meyer riding on the back of a whale shark.
Cropp was Ron Taylor's partner in the making of The Shark Hunters, a 60-minute black and white documentary sold for television screenings in 1961.
In 1977, he discovered the wreck of HMS Pandora, almost concurrently with another film maker John Heyer and a boat owner Steve Domm. At that time, John Heyer had done extensive research to establish the predicted area the Pandora wreck was in and launched a discovery expedition with the help of Steve Domm. Ben Cropp also did extensive research on the wreck and planned his own search jointly at the same time as Steve Domm's arrival because of a pre arranged date with a RAAF plane doing a magnetometer search for both of them.In this way Ben Cropp found the Pandora wreck on the Great Barrier Reef just before John Heyer did. Cropp also lays claim to over 100 other shipwreck discoveries.
Awards
In 1970, Cropp became an accredited ACS member of the Australian Cinematographers Society and given a Life Membership in 2014. This was due to his winning numerous film awards, including the World Underwater Photographer Award in 1964, and his still photography was published in top magazines around the world, including National Geographic and the cover of Time.
In 1999, he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia.
In 2000, he was part of the International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame's inaugural induction.