General
Information:
George Perina lives in the seaside community
of Santa Barbara, California, where he divides his time between photography
and computer consulting. He's been an active diver for 30 years,
and has logged several thousand dives. His images have appeared in
ISLANDS and SPORT DIVER magazines.
After leaving the army, where he took up
photography as a hobby, his love of the ocean compelled him to move to
Santa Barbara, to pursue a degree in marine biology. He's been there
ever since.
Though computers occupy most of his time
today, he spent 7 years as a dive instructor working throughout the Caribbean
and the Red Sea. He also did brief stints as a commercial diver in Louisiana,
as well as an urchin diver in Santa Barbara --something he vows never to
do again: "I love the oceans too much to waste my dive time working
for someone else. When I'm underwater now, it's to take pictures.
In fact, I don't even dive now unless I have a camera in hand."
Frustrated by his inability to find a lens
for taking over/under pictures, he began to manufacture them under the
trade name Chroma+Plus. The lenses met critical success at DEMA,
and he still produces a very limited quantity for distribution. "As
far as I know, I'm the only person in the world manufacturing an over/under
lens. But today, it's computers, not lenses, that occupy my time."
He got hooked on computers about ten years
ago and went back to school to study networking and hardware. It
felt odd to start a new career at 40, but computers have been his life
for last 8 years. "Computers hold a special fascination for me.
I find it almost inconceivable that I can go on a beach dive in the morning
here in Santa Barbara --and show the pictures to someone in London
later on that day via the Internet."
Seapix.com,
his website, was originally designed as a home page, to share his photos
with his fellow divers and co-workers. But the site has grown, and
he now receives inquiries from all over the world about his travels, marine
biology and photography. "I love it when I get a comment from grade-school
students asking about marine life, or a photography question from somewhere
half-way around the world like New Zealand. We truly have become
a global community."
You can email George Perina with your comments
and feedback at george@seapix.com.
Copyright
Information:
All images displayed in this ScubaDuba
Exhibition of George Perina's work are copyrighted by George Perina and
are displayed by special permission from the photographer. None of these
images may be legally reproduced without prior written authorization from
George Perina. These photos are not freeware, and copying them to another
computer, computer floppy disk or any other medium is strictly prohibited.
For any type of usage, please contact George Perina by email at george@seapix.com.
Violation of these copyright laws will be considered copyright infringement.
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