From a family of avid photographers, our get togethers had slide shows most nights. I was focused on physical activities, dreaming to be in the Olympics &/or National Geographic Explorer. At age 28 I spent late winter living on a frozen lake 25 miles below the Arctic Circle in central Alaska. I bought a full Canon A-1 kit before I went to the airport and it's a good thing it was an automatic because I was clueless. As a portable oil & gas exploration surveyor, I was lucky enough to be in so many incredible places it didn't matter that I only shot the 50mm in Auto.

I was hooked! It was with me the next couple months surveying the Utah & Nevada mountains by chopper. The camera gear just went in for a dust cleaning when I was sent back to Alaska for a summer job. It was so humid in the bush my theodolite had to sit in front of a fan all night to stay dry enough to work. My camera would have likely fared worse, but every time I came upon an amazing sight I felt the emptiness.

Helicopters in the desert mountains, mogul skiing, extreme snowboarding and motorcycles pushed me away from SLR's. I don't remember my first P&S, but I do remember shooting over the shoulder at a slab slide as I snowboarded out from under it! After moving to Maui, I got a Nikonus V to prove I was seeing sharks on my free dives into the caverns. Whales led to a fast SLR and super zoom for surface intervals.

Inheriting dad's Nikonus SB-101 strobe brought the underwater colors out and sucked me in for good! I read lots of magazine articles and sponged a few sage tips (don't bother with ttl). I was blessed to have spectacular subject matter, as well as more that a little luck (right place right time). A few years in Monterey put the SLR back in my hands, for whale watches and coastal wildlife, but I yearned for Maui.

A couple months in Key Largo earned my SCUBA instructor credentials, and a Stephen Frink photo-pro course from Michael Waters prepared me for 16 great rebreather dives with my new Nikonus V/20mm lens/Ike SS200 rig. Returning to Hawaii, the world was going digital. I surfed the web extensively to decide on the Oly 5050. I knew I needed wide angle and my Ike strobe was more than competent shooting manual.

Soon I had photo's on display in the dive shop gallery where I worked, and sold many matted prints to neighbors, tourists and craft fair patrons. Unfortunately that was Oahu's North Shore and I just had to be on Maui. There's more good scuba instructors here and more good underwater photographers as well, so getting noticed requires more effort. I need to find a dive model/girlfriend with a gift for marketing!