IMAGING
//
S H O O T E R
STEPHEN FRINK
//
Many of us who have made
careers of underwater photography come from
places where geography made it unlikely. You’re
from landlocked West Texas, far from the sea, but
you’ve said the sea was never far from your mind.
NED DELOACH
// It came so naturally to me. My
mother was a librarian and naturalist. I was raised on
tales of the exploits of Shackleton, Audubon and
Beebe. I was particularly fond of stories
about the sea, especially adventures
that took place below the
surface. In those days, that
meant hardhat diving.
My fascination turned
into a lifelong passion
during a family
vacation to Georgia;
I think I was eight
at the time. My dad
took a detour south and drove the coastal road along
Florida’s panhandle. At the end of a causeway, I saw
three boys, not much older than I was at the time,
inching down an incline to the water with masks and
fins in hand. I distinctly remember thinking, “If I lived
by the ocean, I would know the name every creature
living in it.” That Christmas the deal was sealed when
I found a mask and fins under the tree. I turned into a
water rat, joining the swim team, taking water-safety
courses, becoming a lifeguard and teaching and later
coaching swimming. Shortly after college I headed off
to Florida to dive and have been here ever since.
SF
// Florida has vast and diverse diving
opportunities and was a marine wilderness in the
late 1960s. Where did you do most of your diving?
ND
// I settled in Jacksonville, where I took
a job at a local high school coaching
swimming and teaching
physical education. The
state’s springs were within
easy driving distance;
many of the best sites
were located along the
Suwannee River less than
90 miles from my door. In
those days springs meant
water-filled caves, and
caves meant exploration.
How could I resist? I had the good fortune of meeting
Sheck Exley early on and being included in his group
of cave-diver friends. They were the top of the heap,
going deeper and penetrating caves where no one had
ever been before, pushing boundaries to the extreme.
Those were heady times. Today, folks in the
know consider Sheck the best diver of all
time and one of the greatest explorers of the
generation. I found out early on I was not of
92
|
WINTER 2014
P H O T O S B Y N E D D
e
L O A C H
T E X T B Y S T E P H E N F R I N K
S H O O T E R :
There is a situation common to almost every underwater photographer
and marine-life enthusiast on virtually every liveaboard in the tropical seas.
We get out of the water, rush to download our photographs and then sit in
the main salon with our laptops, scrolling through images. We then thumb
through the fish-identification reference books
to discover more about the weird and wonderful
creatures we just saw. More often than not, Ned
DeLoach and Paul Humann will have authored the
fish-ID guide of choice. Logical, encyclopedic and definitive, these books are
the culmination of lives well spent, diving and documenting.
Above: a turf war between two
spinyhead blennies (Acanthemblemaria
spinosa)
Opposite: an undescribed pelagic
octopus (Macrotritopus sp.)
