Cathy Church – Underwater Photography Pioneer and Educator
Hey everyone welcome to another episode of the League of Extraordinary Divers. It’s great to have you here today.
Back in the early eighties is when I got certified and my favorite magazine was Skin Diver magazine. Today’s guest was photo editor for Skin Diver magazine and it was many of her photos and articles that fueled me on as a new diver. And that is the one and only Cathy Church.
As a child, Cathy was an avid biologist and bird watcher. She earned a BS in biology from the University of Michigan where she learned to SCUBA dive. She was studying marine biology at Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine biology station in Monterey, California when she met Jim Church, a scuba diver who was pioneering underwater photography and writing for Skin Diver Magazine in the early 60s. Cathy wanted to document her underwater work and spent many dives with Jim exploring ways to use the Calypso camera and flashbulb systems with homemade accessories.
She earned an MS in Marine biology at the University of Hawaii but in the late 1960s, she was not able to break the barricades against women divers and she quit pursuing a career as a scientist and turned to two other activities—underwater photography and teaching 7th and 8th grade science in California.
She quickly became recognized as one of the world’s foremost teachers and authors on underwater photography. Cathy was a photo editor for Skin Diver magazine for 15 years, coauthored hundreds of magazine articles and four books on underwater photo techniques, and offered seminars throughout the USA. Her first week-long photo courses were taught in Grand Cayman in 1972.
She is well known for many styles of photography from advertising, documentary and editorial to fantasy images for her gallery. For fourteen years she produced limited edition fine art black and white silver gelatin prints. Her coffee table book “My Underwater Photo Journey” was published in 2004. Cathy is still creating new styles to her photography, from imagination to humor to creations with Photoshop. Her latest assignment was to produce an environmental portrait underwater of screenwriter J.V.Hart for a How-to book “Environmental Portraiture” by Jim Cornfield. This required numerous trials and ideas, and a completely different approach to finally capture Hart’s personality and not just another diver in a lovely scene.
Cathy’s enthusiasm when she teaches and her kindness toward her students have won her accolades from divers around the world. She encourages people through her writing, her seminars and her classes to enjoy the wonders of the undersea environment. She spends many hours successfully coaching people who are fearful of the water on how to become snorkelers and divers. Cathy believes in sharing everything she has learned and she has found many ways to do that.
Like most divers she is a dedicated environmentalist and became a vegan to reduce her impact on the over-consumption of ocean sea food and the destruction caused by raising cattle and other farm animals, with the added advantage of keeping her fully healthy at 75.
Items In This Podcast
- Growing up with a biology passion
- Certified at University of Michigan with the legendary Lee Sommers
- Meeting Jim Chuch
- Being photo editor of Skin Diver Magazine
- Amazing photo assignments
- Photo classes and photo trips
- Cathy’s book “My Underwater Photo Journey”
- Cathy’s website
Sponsor
Special thanks to our episode sponsor Aggressor Adventures
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