Fourteen years ago, while a graduate student in maritime archaeology, Emily Jateff found a novel way to get chosen for a mission to document the innermost spaces of the world's most famous shipwreck - the Titanic.
Ms Jateff, of Faulconbridge, made "a cheesy video" for the Last Mysteries of the Titanic project via an underwater archaeology jobs website and was thrilled when her application was accepted.
"It's all a blur now, I was doing my master’s thesis on 19th-century subsistence whaling in Carolina … one of the other [archaeologists] had a camera and I roped him into filming me for this cheesy video on my porch .. it had to be something that made you stand out.
"Deep water archaeology was just building up then and I was absolutely fascinated in a deep water project that involved archaeological applications."
On April 14, 1912, on its maiden voyage, Titanic struck an iceberg and sank. Located 323 nautical miles off the coast of Newfoundland, it now rests 3,875m beneath the ocean’s surface.
Last Mysteries of the Titanic was an expedition in 2005 funded by Discovery Channel and Earthship Productions, led by filmmaker/explorer James Cameron to see the shipwreck and learn more. It took place on board Russian research vessel Akademik Mystislav Keldysh.
"The purposes were to explore areas deep within the bow section of the wreck using state-of-the-art miniature remotely operated vehicles called X-BOTs, and send the first live video feed from the bottom of the ocean," Ms Jateff said.
The expedition was able to take pictures of the Turkish baths, located deep below on F Deck - deploying the X-BOTs down the hole left by the grand staircase and manoeuvring off the elevators.She said they had hoped to see more of the third class and crew sections, but rubble prevented it.
Ms Jateff said she found the voyage "surreal".
"I was young. I was a student, and I looked at the voyage and the vessel with a student’s eye."
But there were some hair-raising moments while making her four 12-hour round trip dives in the Mir submersible, including being trapped on the inky black depths by a ghost net.
"Ghost nets—the large fishing nets used by trawlers to indiscriminately scoop up fish from the depths—litter the ocean, even in the deep. The sub became momentarily entangled in one of these and stuck. I watched the screen as I felt the aft end of the submersible rise, while the nose was still firmly and solidly pointed to the sea floor. 'Just watch the bubbles,' said my veteran companion, Mike deGruy; 'if they are still going up, so are we'. We surfaced just fine."
Ms Jateff said it was "an opportunity for which I will forever be grateful".
"The ocean deep is slowly yielding its secrets to science and is also incredibly beautiful. Barking about its barren appearance is like an astronaut whining about the lack of trees on the moon or the earth looking too small."
Now curator of Ocean Science and Technology, Ms Jateff worked on the installation of the James Cameron: Challenging the Deep exhibition showing at the Australian National Maritime Museum until May 5. After 14 years, it was like visiting an old friend to see footage of Titanic's Turkish Baths displayed on the big screen.
Developed with the support of the Avatar Alliance Foundation, the exhibition explores a lifetime of fascination with the deep ocean. Book at www.anmm.gov.au/jamescameron