Page 95 - AlertDiver_Winter2013

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P h o t o s b y A m o s N a c h o u m / T e x t b y S t e p h e n F r i n k It is appropriate that an article on the photography of
Amos Nachoum should appear in the same issue of
Alert Diver as a feature on the Red Sea, for the genesis of
Nachoum’s career is inextricably linked with diving there.
Nachoum and I first intersected in 1982. By that
time I had begun to build a decent portfolio of
underwater images from my home waters of the
Florida Keys and the Caribbean, but I had yet to shoot a
clownfish or a lionfish or even a bit of soft coral. I knew from
the published work of Rick Frehsee and others that the clear
waters and spectacular coral reefs of the Red Sea offered the
best potential for what was to be my first exotic photo tour.
This was long before there was such a thing as Internet
research on dive destinations, and message boards were a
remote and nascent concept. To learn about where to go for
diving, we read magazines (usually Skin Diver in those days)
and talked to those who had personal experience in the region.
For the Red Sea the go-to guy with local knowledge was
Nachoum. He is Israeli, and at that time the Red Sea was
under Israel’s control, at least in practice. As a result of
the 1978 Camp David Accords, the Sinai Peninsula and
much of the Red Sea was ceded to Egypt, but the transfer
of governance lagged a few years behind. Nachoum had
founded a dive travel company, La Mer, especially to
facilitate recreational diving in the Red Sea, and it was with
La Mer that I chartered my first liveaboard dive boat and
led my first exotic photo tour. I recently caught up with
Nachoum to fill in the blanks about what preceded that era
and discuss where his career has taken him since.
Stephen Frink// So I know you originally from the
days when you lived in New York and ran La Mer Diving
Seafaris, which you promoted with bold, full-page ads in
Skin Diver. How did you morph from a kid in Israel to a
dive entrepreneur in New York City?
Amos Nachoum// It was a big step for me, but as a child
growing up in Israel I always wanted to be a photographer.
The travel hook came much later, but photography was my
first passion. My father was a soldier during World War II and
during the creation of the state of Israel, and we had around the
house complicated cameras with bellows, brass and chrome. He
also had photos from his time fighting the Nazis. Not that he
wanted me to be a photographer, however. In fact, the demands
of youth were different in Israel, and I was expected to be an
electrical engineer. Yet, I was intrigued by the images he took,
the stories behind them, and the complexity of the camera.
Still, it was a path I had to walk alone.
As with many others, my time in the Israeli army forged
a new direction. Military service in Israel is compulsory, for
both boys and girls, and my service was with the Special
Forces. Aside from the specific tasks I was assigned, I did war
photography for fun, if you can call it that. I took photos and
shared them with friends. I started doing it when I was 18,
and I stayed with it until I was 25.
SF// War photography is very different than what you do
today. Was there a watershed moment that shifted your
perspectives?
AN// After I got out of the service (the first time) I
apprenticed as a fashion photographer for a year. That was
a very interesting time for me, and I learned the relevant
fundamental skills such as black-and-white darkroom work,
working with strobes and directing models. Maybe not all
of that is relevant to me today, especially since my models
are large marine animals, and they are very poor at taking
direction. But it was good training, even if I did decide to go
back into the military for another three years.
Above, from left: King penguins, South Georgia Island, Sub Antarctica
— When 250,000 pairs of penguins gather, it is one of the most smelly
and most amazingly colorful sights in wildlife photography.
Photographer Amos Nachoum in 2011.
Keding ZHU