Born and raised
in the New York metropolitan area, I have been drawn to the marine world since
I was a kid, spending most of my time during beach outings with my head
underwater rather than above. My interest quickly turned into a passion when I
started working at the New England Aquarium while attending Northeastern
University in Boston: I decided to spend my student financial aid to pay for
SCUBA certification. During my tenure at the University of Florida, I got
heavily involved in cave diving and found myself strangely fascinated with
manatees that would spend time in the warm waters of the same inland springs we
used for our dives. Manatees, their endangered status, and the rescue efforts
of organizations such as Sea World Florida and Save the Manatee Club would
later become the subject of an Imax film I am developing with Director of
Photography Jim Matlosz and Director
Mark Merrall. After obtaining my Divemaster and Open Water Instructor ratings I
took a detour and taught for several years in the dive industry in New England
and New Jersey, including cold water rescue classes for regional fire fighters,
and did serious wreck diving off the Atlantic Coast on board the "Seeker",
which was featured in "Shadow Divers". I finally decided that it was time to
pursue my other passion in life--underwater cinematography--and attended NYU
film school and a technical school in Florida specializing in Film and Video
Production before working with Jordan Klein Film and Video as a freelance
underwater camera operator. 
In 1992, I moved to California where I started shooting
commercials, feature films, television shows, and music videos. However, my
primary interest and my passion remain devoted to marine wildlife, using the
experience and knowledge gained in the feature and TV world to tell a
compelling documentary story and to make unique and technically more difficult
shots happen. Some recent contributions include a shark documentary for
Tigress Productions to air on Discovery Channel's Shark Week. In Winter 2008, I spent 3 months abroad working in the Amazon, New Zealand and Western Australia filming wild dolphins for a feature documentary "Na Nai'A: The Dolphins".
