Manfish Camera
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Jerry Greenberg relaxes at Photos completed, author heads home between assignments. for the surface to reload camera. MANFISH is a photo-biography of Jerry Greenberg, cover with a ing his first twenty years in underwater photo graphy. During this time he filmed the efforts of CAMERA divers in their quest for fish, treasure, and record-breaking depth and endurance dives. Other subjects for his camera have been marine tropicals, barracuda, dolphin and shark. Jerry Greenberg is an internationally known authority on under water photography. He has contributed to magazines such as National Geographic, LIFE, Paris Match, Sports Illustrated, Camera, Popular Photography, Realities, Stern, Reader's Digest and Skin Diver. In addition to photo-journalism, he specializes in hydro-dynamic photo surveys for the United States Navy. PRICE $2.00 in U.S.A. ISBN: 0-913008-05-2 Contents Foreword. ......................... .. 2 Beachcombing with a camera. ........ .. 3 Spearfishing with the dead-end kids. ... .. 5 Underwater photography. ............ .. 9 Deep dive to death. ................. .. 13 Copyright, 1971 Jerry Greenberg Feeding the pulps. .................. .. 15 ISBN: 0-913008-05-2 24 hours beneath the sea. ............ .. 17 Text by Idaz and Jerry Greenberg. Photographs in this book Cave diving. ........................ .. 21 were taken by Jerry Greenberg unless otherwise indicated. Diamond river caper. ................ .. 25 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without permission in writing from the publishers, except Roaming the reefs. .................. .. 27 by a reviewer who wishes to quote briefpassages for inclusion Park in the sea. ..................... .. 29 in a magazine or newspaper review. Sealab 1... ......................... .. 33 Some of my best friends are sharks. ... .. 37 Published by 7 sons of supercase. ................. .. 41 SEAHAWK PRESS Submersible science. ................. .. 43 6840 S.W. 92nd St. Miami, Florida 33I56 Clicking with dolphins. .............. .. 45 20,000 dollars under the sea. ......... .. 47 printed in U.S.A. Foreword "How did you ever get started?" People seem to ask that same question of anyone in an unusual occupation, be he lion tamer, steeplejack or underwater photo grapher. My reply is that I combined my interest in spearfishing with a love of photography, It really isn't that simple. Recently I p.ve at talk at a photo-journalism conference coveringmysnauy years ofexperience behind a camera. I re2ll'izc;({ then that my early interest in this: field was mow than just the marriage of spearfishing and phoecgsaphy. My fascination with the sea began long before I ever put on a mask and fins or looked into the lens ofa camera. As a boy in Chicago I hauntedtJhe reef exhibit at the Field Museum and the fish tanks at I the Shedd Aquarium. I saved every National Geo graphic Magazine article on marine life I could wheedle out of my dentist. Jules Verne's classic story, "20,000 Leagues. Under the Sea" was a great inspiration to me. I must have read it through countless times in my youth and now find myself reading this fabulous adventure to my three children. Other memorable reading by authors such as Dr. William Beebe, Zane Grey, Guy Gilpatrick and J. E. Williamson held me in rapt attention. With no hope ofjoining their esteemed company, I submit the following record of my first 20 years as an underwater photographer. 2 -----_.__._---- Beachcombing with a camera After a stint in the army, it was time to select a college. I heard that the University of Miami had a special course in Marine Biology and headed for Coral Gables, Florida. My suitcases bulged with a recently purchased Leica camera, a vintage Rolleiflex, developing equipment and a copy ofBreder's "Marine Fishes of the Atlantic Coast." I enrolled and was fortunate to land a job as student assistant to Dr. Luis Rivas, a zoologist studying Gambusia, a minnow. My real love was beachcombing with a camera. There was raw beauty in the rows of sun-bleached nets and floats spread out to dry, the fragile porcelain like sea urchin shells that lined the beaches and the rotting dismasted hulls of old ships. I listened to sea yarns told by leather-faced fishermen and decided in what direction I wanted my life to go. 3 if !i Paul Dammann and Jack Drimba with an BOO-pound catch of jewfish speared at ILower Matecumbe Key. Horsing up a struggling jewfish is back-breaking work. Spearfishing with the dead-end kids I I I Spearfishing captured my interest. During this time I renewed later, partly because of the dead-end kids and others like them, spearfish I:~ an acquaintance with Paul Dammann, an excellent spearfisherman. ing was banned throughout this area. Dammann and Drimba used the I' He, along with Jack Drimba, had starred in the film "Five Fathoms only diving equipment available at that time, round black Sea Dive masks J of Fun." After Grantland Rice released the film, the boys became and green Churchill fins. They made their own Hawaiian slings, spears and "I celebrities of sorts and were doing commercial spearfishing. This gas guns. The latter was a C02 gun made from a fire extinguisher which n: was right up my alley, and I joined them as photographic Boswell, fired blunt steel drivers with brutal, deadly efficiency. It was standard boatman and partner-in-crime. The boys fished the then virgin equipment for braining big grouper and jewfish. There were special spots waters of the Florida Keys from Carysfort to Tennessee Light. where you could always find a variety of fish: Dixie Shoals for huge They soon became known as the dead-end kids due to their groupers, the abutments at Lower Matecumbe for jewfish, and the inside I-don't-give-a-damn attitude. This cocky approach did not endear patches of Molasses for snapper and hogfish. The Florida Keys at that them to the businessmen and residents of the Keys. Many years time seemed to have an inexhaustable supply of fish. 5 6 I I: I, I: I, i'" :1, An average day's catch of grouper, gutted and ready for market. Mean-tempered Igreen moray eel slowed down a lobstering jaunt and the boys had to kill it. I: When spearing in the shallow inside reefs, both divers i would work independently of each other catching grouper, , hogfish and snapper. I would run the boat picking up their " I" catch and replacing bent or lost spears. In deep water or [i when sharks were in the area, Dammann and Drimba worked as a team. One diver would be spearing fish while the other I, "rode shotgun" on the surface. I; It wouldn't take long to fill the boat with fish. Many times I[ one more big fish would surely have swamped us. The catch Ii averaged about 400 lbs., but some days ran 800 to 1,000 Ibs. 1;, Il Grouper and snapper brought in 15c to 20c lb. IiI We tried to return the boats we rented in reasonably good Iii shape, but there were times when a massive, struggling fish would smash a seat or two. Once, in order to subdue a t~ thrashing jewfish, Drimba shot it with his gas gun. The spear went in the fish and out the bottom of the boat, almost sink ing us. After a while the boat liveries got wise and refused to rent to the dead-end kids. One of the most choice fish to eat, the hogfish is also the easiest target to spear. 7 8 'f i~ I~ I: Back in 1947, I had constructed a plastic case for the Kodak School of porkfish swim past my lens in one of my first underwater shots. I· Brownie Special. Although it worked in the swimming pool, it was I: hardly suitable for the deeper waters of the reefs. I was determined to document the antics of the dead-end kids as well as the scenery. 1951. This bronze housing held myoId I; I Rather than jeopardize my Leica equipment, I purchased a Robot Leica camera and weighed eleven lbs. I. Luftwaffe model camera, which had a useful 50 exposure spring I,1 motor. A special lucite housing was made for it, but the results of some months later. It weighed 11 Ibs. and took myoid Standard :j preliminary work in Biscayne Bay were not encouraging. The one l~ Leica. I used it with a 28 mm. Hektor lens which was the widest ,f< inch square negative had poor quality and my case proved unde angle lens available for the Leica. Its fast F 6.3 aperture was con ,I, pendable in more than 20 feet of water. Finally, I found the answer sidered the optical miracle of the time. This housing. camera and to my problem in the II th edition of the Leica Manual. It con wide angle lens opened up new vistas of underwater photography. tained an article by Peter Stackpole, a Life Magazine staffer. He Taking pictures with this 11 lb. millstone around my neck before described a metal housing made for his Leica in California. I sent I had an Aqua-lung wasn't easy, but I got some good photos on my my check for $160 and received the chrome-plated bronze housing lung-busting trips to the bottom. 9 10 The stingray, a study in graceful movement. Roaming the reefs ,;-0:,.- Colorful Molasses Reef is host to an incredible variety of soft and hard coral, and a myriad of vivid-hued tropical fish. The latter half of the 1950's was the most productive time ofmy photo-diving career. During that period I manufactured Seahawk camera housings, published "Underwater Photography Simplified," i experimented with flash bulbs and a submersible electronic flash, i and took my first color pictures.