A Twenty-five Year Throwback in Photography and the Ocean

by Skip Cohen

I've shared a lot of Throwback Thursday shots from past dive trips, but this was one of the best. However, there's never been a truly bad one.

For at least ten years, a group of us dove together typically twice a year. This trip was a live-aboard with the Aggressor fleet to Truk. Truk represented a significant battle in WWII with some of the most beautiful wreck diving in the world. From battleships to aircraft, tanks, and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition on the ocean floor, it's a never-ending contrast of the war combined with the beauty of fish and the undersea growth corals, and plant life.

What brings back memories are the photographs. On that table above are at least three Hasselblads in underwater housings, several Nikons, and a ton of Ikelites. Thanks to my daughter and a fisheye lens, she captured the most important area of the boat - the briefing area and equipment table. But like everyone who owns a fisheye lens - making people look like Jiminy Cricket, as she did with my buddy Bob Rose and me, just adds to the fun.

If you haven't gone in search of your own throwback memories today, what are you waiting for? Old photographs remind us of the incredible career choice we made to be a part of this industry. Very little beats a quick look in your rearview mirror and helps remind you of the memories yet to be captured with a camera in your hands.

Happy Throwback Thursday!