I worked out of McMurdo Station during the 1997-1998, 1999-2000, and 2000-2001 seasons under the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Artists and Writers Program (part of its science-based U.S. Antarctic Program) to document the underwater world of Antarctica in still photographs and video for a high-definition television (HDTV) documentary for the Nature series, which airs on PBS. I led a rotating team of divers during those years which included: Peter Brueggeman, director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Library; Dr. M. Dale Stokes, an oceanographer; Christian McDonald, assistant cameraman; D.J. Roller, second cameraman; and Robert (Beez) Bohner, a renowned Antarctic helicopter pilot.
We began our work in October 1997, early in the Antarctic summer, when the sun has been mostly absent for six months and the water is virtually free of phytoplankton, and thus strikingly clear. Our visibility was limited not by particles in the seawater, as is usual when diving, but by the availability of light filtering through the sea ice. Over a three-month period, we made 68 dives – typically lasting an hour, sometimes longer if our hands could stand the cold – and various field trips, during which I shot 500 rolls of film.