Having grown up in upstate New York in the middle of the beautiful Adirondack mountains I didn’t even see the ocean until I was a young teen. Even so, I remember having had a fascination with it, from watching old Jaques Cousteau and Shark Hunter films to saying I wanted to be a marine biologist ‘when I grew up.’ At age 12, I heard about a scuba class at a local swim center and promptly signed up (not telling my parents until after the fact). I had been too young according to the rules at the time, and I am not sure if they let it slide or if I just lied.
I joined the class but never fully completed my certification, and then school/work/life all got in the way over the next 20 years. It wasn’t until I was married and in my 30’s that I returned to scuba with my wife leading the way. We became certified in Monterey, CA, and I purchased my first camera set-up soon after.
That camera, a compact Canon s120 in Nauticam housing with a single Sea and Sea YS03, saw me through almost 10 years and a couple hundred California and tropical dives. It took me a long time to feel like I was becoming a better photographer and had outgrown the camera.
By then every vacation was a dive vacation and our hearts were turning to the ocean more and more. In 2021 we were both working remotely and decided to take advantage of the opportunity to move to someplace ‘salty’. Key Largo checked a lot of the boxes, and we made the cross-country move from CA with our two dogs.
We bought an old center console boat before our furniture even arrived and learned all the ins and outs of trailering and diving on our own at the reefs. We both started volunteering with the Coral Restoration Foundation. Venice has become a regular destination for fossil diving, and the Blue Heron Bridge and sharks of Jupiter have been wonderful discoveries. As hoped for, diving has become a huge part of our regular lives. I upgraded to an Olympus E-PL10, added another strobe, and started learning mixed lenses. Although it was a great camera, I upgraded again after a couple years to a Sony A7RV with an Isotta housing and Backscatter Hybrid strobes.
Underwater photography for me is all about love for the ocean. It keeps every dive fresh – I may see the same fish over and over but through the camera I can often see them ‘new.’ I love exposing the beauty of our ocean – not just for beauty’s sake but also to share as a message for conservation. The macro world holds hidden treasures while the wide-angle world has all the drama. I can’t wait to keep shooting for many years to come.