D
oug Perrine grew
up in Dallas, Texas,
immersed in a life he
refers to as “Leave
It To Beaveresque.”
But even as a child he
seemed to know suburbia was not for
him. He would make his way to whatever
creek or patch of nature he could find
and was frequently bringing home turtles
and frogs, much to his mother’s dismay.
He even had forays into underwater
imaging back then; he destroyed at least
one Brownie camera by trying to use it in
a swimming pool in a plastic bag.
By the time he graduated from
high school in 1970, Perrine realized
he needed to go to college. Besides
the obvious educational benefits, he
had a draft lottery number of 5, and
he would have soon found himself in
Vietnam if he hadn’t received a student
deferment. Inexplicably drawn to the
ocean, the college he chose was the
University of Hawaii, where he was
free to juggle student life with learning
to surf, snorkel and scuba dive.
Perrine’s direction was murky
in those days. He tried psychology
and chemistry before settling on
an amorphous major called “liberal
studies” and a certificate in the
university’s Marine Option Program.
With a bachelor’s degree that prepared
him for very little, Perrine worked as
a papaya picker and a lifeguard for a
while before joining the Peace Corps
and then spending 1978 and 1979
backpacking around the South Pacific
and Southeast Asia.
Western author Louis L’Amour
referred to the time people spend
traveling and discovering themselves
before their life’s true purpose is
revealed as their “yondering years.”
Perrine’s yondering years included a
stint with the Peace Corps in Morocco
followed by another in Pohnpei,
a sleepy Micronesian posting that
allowed him plenty of time to spearfish
and scuba dive while he conducted
research on mangrove crabs. His
immersion in the dive industry came
in 1979 when he became a scuba
instructor and began working for
Blackbeard’s Cruises, leading dive
and sailing trips to the Bahamas. In
1980 he went to work at Bob Soto’s
scuba operation on Grand Cayman.
Perrine was encouraged to teach a
specialty course to better monetize
his instructor status, and he chose
underwater photography. Armed
with his specialty instructor rating
from the Professional Association
of Diving Instructors (PADI) and a
Nikonos camera, he decided to learn
all he could to better be able to teach
his newly acquired skills, but as it
turned out he never taught a PADI
underwater photography course.
Perrine enrolled in a graduate
program at the University of Miami’s
esteemed Rosenstiel School of Marine
and Atmospheric Science, earning a
master’s degree in fisheries biology. But
just as he never taught photography,
he never again worked as a marine
scientist. That would have meant a
desk job, and Perrine had made up his
mind to be on or in the water.
His primary interest was marine-
life behavior, and he saw a chance to
combine his scientific knowledge with
his underwater photography skills by
working as a freelance journalist. One
of his first submissions to Underwater
USA was rewarded with a cover story
and a check, and Perrine decided it was
the right path for him.
Stephen Frink
/
Underwater
photojournalism has not been
an easy way to make a living,
particularly in the early 1980s.
What made you leap into the deep
end of that pool?
Doug Perrine
//
Actually, you were
one of my inspirations when I made
that fateful choice to leave science
and go into photojournalism. You
seemed to be making a living from
your photography, so I figured maybe
I could, too. I also knew someone who
was doing a lot of work for Skin Diver
and telling me fabulous lies about how
much money he was making; it wasn’t
until later that I realized how much
exaggeration had gone into his boasts.
I didn’t go full time right away
though. I was getting pretty steady
work contributing text and photo
submissions to Sea Frontiers magazine
and Underwater USA, but I was also
working part time as an interpretive
naturalist. In that role I led tours of
IMAGING
//
S H O O T E R
94
|
FALL 2013
