The husband and wife team of Jack and Sue Drafahl have devoted their lives to teaching underwater photography. These professional undersea journalists, lecturers and multimedia producers have spent 42 years perfecting their skills and sharing their images of the sea.
Jack and Sue both received their diving certification in the early 1970s and started their professional photographic careers at Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, CA. Jack has his Master’s Degree in Education and became an instructor at Brooks, developing the Audio-Visual Department. Sue formed a commercial photography company, Image Concepts, servicing high-tech clients like Intel.
In the late 1990s, they closed the doors of their commercial photography business to work full time lecturing, writing magazine articles, and eventually authoring books.
Their infectious enthusiasm for sharing their hard-earned knowledge about digital photography has made them popular speakers at Beneath the Sea, Our World Underwater, DEMA, Boston Sea Rovers, Sea Space, the Scuba Show, NW Dive Travel Show, and Great Lakes Shipwreck Festival.
To help students work with their digital underwater images, in 2004, Jack and Sue started the Oregon Coast Digital Center. This facility offers one-on-one teaching of underwater Photoshop, Elements, and Lightroom. They have developed an online site, (www.UnderwaterPhotoTutorials.com) featuring 1025 tutorials providing underwater education that can be accessed 24/7.
In their quest to develop new ways of improving underwater photography, they hold two patents for their inventions of the Light Handle and Framer Enhancers.
For the past 16 years, they have conducted an underwater photography course held in Bonaire. They continue to lead dive and photo trips to the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Indonesia, Tonga, and other exotic locations worldwide.
Since 1973, they have written over 800 articles for scuba and photography magazines including Skin Diver, Petersen’s Photographic, Sport Diver, Rangefinder, Dive Training, Diver, Photo Lab Management, Outdoor Photographer, Family Photo, Focus on Imaging, National Geographic World, National Wildlife Federation, Cousteau Dolphin Log and more.
They have written seven non-fiction books, Digital Imaging for the Underwater Photographer, Master Guide to Digital Underwater Photography, Adobe Photoshop for Underwater Photographers, Photo Salvage with Adobe Photoshop, Advanced Digital Camera Techniques, Step-by-step Basic Digital
