Articles

A turtle flashes a smile at the camera, Komodo Island, Indonesia
 

Our most popular regular feature, Photographer of the Week has always had the goal of showcasing the output of the world’s most-talented underwater shooters. But even by that standard, the work of this week’s featured shooter—a true legend and pioneer of our industry—sets the bar very high. With a successful career spanning more than four decades, Stephen Frink is one of the planet’s most prolific and most frequently published underwater photographers. As well as gracing the covers of numerous dive magazines, his pictures have been used to advertise a large variety of commercial products.

His life as an underwater photographer began back in 1978 (the same year I was born!) in Key Largo, Florida, where he opened a small studio dedicated to underwater photo services, primarily renting cameras and processing E-6 slide film. It wasn’t long before he began to receive assignment offers to photograph and write articles for the consumer dive publications of the day, and he ended up working as a photojournalist for Skin Diver magazine for 17 years, covering much of the Caribbean, Bahamas and Florida Keys for the publication. For the past 11 years, Stephen has been the publisher of Alert Diver magazine, a beautiful coffee-table collectible magazine for the members of the Divers Alert Network.

Stephen’s list of commercial clients is just as impressive as his long history of taking underwater images for dive magazines. Scubapro, Aqualung, Oceanic, Canon, Nikon, Subgear, Mercury Marine, Rolex—heck, even Victoria’s Secret—these are just some of the well-known brands to have featured his work. When not on assignment, Stephen teaches Masters level courses of Stephen Frink School of Underwater Digital Imaging each summer in his home waters off Key Largo, and offers dive excursions emphasizing underwater photography through his travel company, WaterHouse Tours.

As you would expect for someone who has dived everywhere and been around for so long, limiting Stephen’s portfolio to only a dozen or so images is all but impossible, so we left it to him to do the hard part and choose some of his favorites. His selection is a wonderful mixture of macro and wide-angle work featuring iconic subjects shot using a variety of different photographic techniques. Sharks, whales, dolphins, crocodiles, name any underwater subject you can think of and you can bet Stephen has encountered it at some point and has some amazing photographs to prove it!
 

Mandarinfish portrait captured off Ambon, Indonesia
 

A trumpetfish chows down at Key Largo, Florida, USA
 

Ryan Bucher during the Orange Bowl Swimming Classic dive and swimming competition in Key Largo, Florida, USA
 

Diving the Spiegel Grove shipwreck, Key Largo, Florida, USA
 

Diver and blue tang viewed through the porthole of the HMS Endymion shipwreck, near Salt Cay, Turks and Caicos Islands
 

Caving and snorkeling in Bonaire, Dutch Caribbean
 

A pod of dolphins cruises the Red Sea
 

Diving with great white sharks at Guadalupe Island, Mexico
 

Humpback whales captured on expedition in Tonga
 

Diving and snorkeling with sperm whales in Dominica
 

Filming American crocodiles at Gardens of the Queen (Jardines de la Reina), Cuba
 

Manatee reflections at Key Largo, Florida, USA
 

Frink and Frink, 45 years later!
 

See more of Stephen’s diverse work at www.stephenfrink.com or follow him on Instagram or Facebook.