Danijel Frka
Danijel Frka was born on 6 August 1955 in Rijeka, Croatia. As a traffic engineer, he worked in management positions and is retired as of 2022. But above all, he is an underwater explorer, photographer, historian and writer. He is also involved in the creation of technical illustrations in color for his own and other publications.
He has been engaged in autonomous diving since 1975 as a member of the «Adria» diving club. Since 1978, he has been engaged in underwater photography. He is a diving instructor, and for many years he has participated in competitions in underwater photography, where he achieved notable successes. He took first place at the national championships in underwater photography in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2008. Until 2009, he was the commissioner of the Croatian Diving Association for Underwater Photography and a member of the CMAS International Commission for Underwater Photography.
He became an underwater photography instructor in 2000. As an author, he participates in several joint and independent exhibitions. He achieved his greatest success at the World Championship in Underwater Photography in Bodrum, Turkey in 2011, where he won a bronze medal in the category «Ambient with a model».
He is a permanent associate and advisor to the Ministry of Culture – Hydroarchaeology Department and the Croatian Restoration Institute, specializing in the research of sunken modern-day ships and documentary underwater photography. Among the most famous expeditions in which he participated were the investigation of the wreck of the Austro-Hungarian battleship SZENT ISTVAN sunk near the island of Premuda, the filming of a documentary TV show about the American B-17 flying fortress near the island of Vis, and the finding of the wreck of the Italian admiral ship RE D’ITALIA in the waters of the island of Vis and the investigation site of the ancient bronze statue «Apoxiomenos» near Veli Lošinj.
Together with his friend and diving partner Marin Brsc, he is the author of the documentary TV series «Big Shipwrecks of the Adriatic», which in 2007 won the award «Večernjakov TV ekran» for the best TV documentary series. He is the co-author and screenwriter of the documentary «Vis Shipwrecks».
With Jasen Mesić, he wrote the book «Secrets of the Adriatic Sea» published in 2002 and translated into Slovenian, Italian, German, English, Czech and Hungarian, and «Treasures of the Adriatic» published in 2012 in Croatian, English, German and Italian.
In 2021, he wrote the book «Vis – The Last Hope», which was translated into English.
Independently or as a co-author, he published several books on the topic of recent Croatian aviation and naval history.
He is the author of the book «Sunken Treasure of the Adriatic», a diving guide to the wrecks of the Adriatic with 75 wrecks and more than 1,000 photographs, the vast majority of which are underwater, which was published in July 2023.
He is a contributor to the prestigious British magazines «Diver» and «Scale Models», the German «Tauchen», the Italian «Storia Militare», and the Croatian magazines «More», «Vojna povijest», «Livingstone», «Nautica», «Otvoreno more», «Navigator», «Scubalife».
danijel.frka@gmail.com