Ron Church

During his high active and successful life, Ron Church contributed greatly to man's understanding of the sea. He shared his vast knowledge in underwater photography and marine life with thousands of people. For over 20 years he photographed in nearly all the world’s oceans. Ron received many honors for his work, including the International Underwater Photographer of the Year. He was recognized as one of the foremost underwater photographers of the world.

Ron Church was born in Denver, CO, in 1934. Church moved with his family to San Diego in 1945.

When his family moved north to Los Angeles, Church attended John C. Fremont High School. As a young teen, Church began diving off the local coast and was a member of a dive club called the Aquamen. They dove off the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

One of his proudest achievements was being earning and being awarded Eagle Scout by the Boy Scouts of America in 1952. He wore the Eagle Scout ring for many years.

He was on the wining spearfishing team of every meet in the Southern California area for three years. During his spearfishing days, Ron Church won the title for three world record fish. He speared the first blue fin tuna ever taken by a diver on the West Coast in September of 1954. He was especially proud of this because of the speed of the blue fin tuna. One of the blue fin tuna Church shot was just one pound under the record.

In 1956 he moved to San Diego the second time. He became a member of Addicts spearfishing club of La Jolla, California, that developed the famous Addict Speargun.

Church was diving with his friend and fellow Addict member, Bill Howard off the Coronado Islands southwest of San Diego. Church was using a new Addict Gun he had just built. He landed a record 464½ pound black sea bass without a powerhead for a new world record.

He also shot a record 43-pound Roosterfish off Mexico. Shirley Church still has the mounted record Roosterfish.

It was during these early years of spearfishing that Church became very observant of undersea life and was able to stalk fish, which greatly helped him later in his breathtaking underwater photography.

His early training in photography was at the Art Center Photo School in Los Angeles. It was here that he added the creative approach to photography that applied artistically to his underwater photographic work, whether still, motion pictures or deep-sea scientific photography. With a magical creative eye, he could make the most mundane scientific scene become a work of art.

He did a lot of marine biology research and underwater photography with Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Jim Stewart, the Scripps Diving Officer, did much of the diving with Church during these trips.

Several of these diving operations were at Wake Island, Canton Island and Johnston Island for ocean research studies with Scripps. On March 8, 1961, Ron Church and Jim Stewart were installing a new addition to a long-period wave recorder off Wake Island. After being watched by a six-foot gray reef shark for a while, it suddenly attacked Stewart, hitting him twice in the arm at the elbow. Church protected Stewart from the shark and pulled him out of the water. Stewart was severely hurt and flown to Hawaii, the closest hospital that could help him. Church made the 11-hour flight of over 2,000 on a C-124 to Trippler Army Hospital with his friend. The medical team were able to save Stewart’s arm and allowed him to contribute greatly to diving over his next 30 years at Scripps as Diving Officer.

Church did considerable underwater still photography for Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Sea World of San Diego, the U.S. Department of Interior and many other organizations.

His diving world expanded to include other future notables in the diving community as Dr. Andreas Rechnitizer, Chuck Nicklin and Ed Cargile.

After some of the divers at Scripps formed Scientific Diving Consultants, Inc., in San Diego, Church became part of the diving and underwater photography team.

Church wrote his first book in 1961, Skin Diving Guide To Hawaii. Shortly after that, Church and Ricky Grigg wrote Surfer’s Guide To Hawaii. Grigg was a surfer from San Diego, did his Doctorate Degree at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and was an Aquanaut on the U.S. Navy Sealab (the undersea habitat experiment off La Jolla, CA) in 1965. He is now a Professor at the University of Hawaii.

When Church returned to California in 1962, his wife Shirley and Ron wrote on a new book called Secrets of the Sea. This hardback book was 156 pages with breathtaking photos by Ron. Secrets of the Sea was published in German, French, Italian and Spanish, and was distributed throughout Europe.

Ron Church was also a very accomplished industrial and scientific cinematographer for Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Eastman Kodak, North American Aviation (which became Rockwell International), General Dynamics Convair, Jacques Cousteau, Eastman Kodak, and Ivan Tors Productions. Church also produced several of his own underwater films.

His industrial photo background included being a test jet passenger photographer at speeds up to Mach 2 (twice the seep of sound) at up to 50,000 feet altitude for the aircraft industry.

Deep diving research submersibles offered Church an opportunity to take his photographic abilities even deeper. He was Pilot of Cousteau's undersea vehicles, Diving Saucer and the one-man mini-sub, the Puce (Sea Flea). Church was also Chief Pilot and Photographer of the Westinghouse submersible Deepstar 4000, making over 250 dives in the submersible. He logged hundreds of hours in the deep sea. Many of his artifacts and deepsea photos have been displayed in several museums, and used in books and periodicals.

Among the many scientific dives Ron Church made as Pilot of Deepstar 4000, he also filmed the Sealab underwater habitat experiment 205 feet down off the Scripps pier, sand falls of Cabo San Lucas, many new unusual deep fishes, and numerous other firsts in deep exploration.

For three years Ron Church was the only American photographer on Cousteau's Calypso diving team. He shot a lot of the footage for the television series, The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. He also did underwater photography for several of Cousteau’s books. His underwater still photography and cinematography with Cousteau speaks highly of his photographic work.

Church also dove and filmed beneath the icy waters of Alaskan, swimming with salmon and baby walruses, penetrated to 350 feet deep off the coast of Corsica searching for red coral, hunted killer whales, studied sea otters off Monterey, manatees in Florida and giant octopuses in the Puget Sound. He traveled and filmed in South America, the Mediterranean, Galapagos Islands, the Bahama Blue Holes, and many other areas.

To fill a need for advanced underwater photographic equipment in sport diving, Church was Founder and President of Seacor, Inc. The company name (Seacor) stood for Sea Equipment Advancement Corporation. The San Diego based company developed, manufactured and distributed high-quality underwater photography lenses, Hasselblad underwater housings, strobe arms, viewfinders, and several other types of underwater photographic equipment.

For several years Church shared his knowledge of underwater photography through lectures and seminars throughout the United States and Canada. He developed and founded the Ron Church School of Underwater Photography, which trained instructors teaching his course across North America and in several other countries. Part of his Underwater Photography Instructor Training was many of his personal photos. The School instructor book was Education On Underwater Photography (1972), and the student textbooks were Beginner’s Guide To Photography Underwater (1971 and 1973), and, and Underwater Photo Data & Log Book (1973).

Ron Church, John Skadberg and Ed Cargile shot underwater footage sea otter off Monterey on 70mm IMAX for the U.S. State Department. The film was part of the U.S. Pavilion at the 1974 World's Fair in Spokane, WA. This was the first underwater IMAX film ever shot.

His photo library contained more than 100,000 photos, half of them of undersea subjects taken at depths down to 4,000 feet. Ron Church's underwater photos appeared in hundreds of books, magazine articles and in commercial applications ... and will for years to come.

Throughout his 23 years of diving, Ron Church documented sea life around the world. As a Photo-Journalist, his articles and photos appeared in most major periodicals, including Surfer Magazine, Surfing Illustrated, Life, Holiday, Scientific American, Skin Diver, International Wildlife, Oceans, National Geographic, Aquarius, Diving World, Industrial Photography, Surfing, Time, Sea Frontiers, Marine Technology Journal, U.S. Camera and numerous other publications. He was the Underwater Photography Editor of Aquarius Magazine and Diving World Magazine. In addition to advising the Editor of the magazines on underwater photography, Church wrote monthly articles for these diving publications.

Hundreds of Church's photos were published in numerous books by others. Much of his underwater photography work was published in several of the Cousteau books.

Church wrote several books himself, including Skin Diving Guide To Hawaii (1961), Surfer’s Guide To Hawaii (with Ricky Grigg) (1962), Secrets of the Sea (1963), Beginner’s Guide To Photography Underwater (1971 and 1973), and Education On Underwater Photography (1972), and Underwater Photo Data & Log Book (1973). Each of these books included the beautiful photography of Ron Church.

Ron Church was co-founder of the San Diego Chapter of the Underwater Photographic Society with his long-time friend Chuck Nicklin. He also founded the Underwater Photographers of America.

The films Church produced include Full Fathom Five, Deep Blue World and Secrets of the Sea. He had a full-service cinematography company, Ron Church Productions.

During his impressive career, Church received many major awards and honors for his work: Underwater Photographer of the Year at the International Underwater Film Festival in Santa Monica, CA (1963); NOGI Award for Arts from The Academy of Underwater Arts and Sciences (1973); the first Scott Carpenter Award from the Diving Equipment Manufacturers Association (1973); and many others.

Ron believed that underwater photography is vitally important as a graphic means of presenting the sea’s ecological state and as the most fascinating experience a diver can enjoy. He strongly felt that the world behind the camera is a personal experience that can become a lasting expression for others to know and enjoy. This to him was the essence and importance of underwater photography.

Tragically, Ron Church succumbed to a brain tumor on October 20, 1973. He was only 39 years old. Scripps Institution of Oceanography paid Ron Church a special tribute by having a gallery of his underwater photos as a memorial exhibition. He was recognized by his colleagues at Scripps as one of the world’s foremost underwater photographers and exploring divers.

The Editor of Skin Diver, Jack McKenney, asked Ed Cargile to write the Memorial Article for the magazine about his long-time friend, Ron Church. The article was a tribute to a dedicated man who shared the ocean with the world through his fantastic underwater photography. But it would take a book to share all the contributions Ron Church made to underwater photography, diving and ocean technology.

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