Dougs Photos

The Photography Of Doug Ryan

I am pleased to have the opportunity to share the fabulous photography of Doug Ryan. I met Doug about 5 years ago, and I have greatly benefited from his vast knowledge of the sea. I worked on my divemaster certification under Doug's teaching, and I am honored to call him my friend! These are truly spectacular photos! More will come soon! Click on any photo to enlarge it!

Background about Doug

Douglas Ryan is an Austin based freelance writer, photographer, naturalist and small business owner. Although he has written about and photographed many different subjects including fashion, architecture, business and political personalities, and the American wilderness, the driving passion of his life has always been the sea.

"My first introduction to the ocean realm was watching the "Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau" on a black and white television in a little town in East Texas. I couldn't have been any older than three. I was so captivated that I would pull my dad's giant tube socks over my tiny feet and pretend they were fins, crawling around the house and under beds like I was exploring undersea caves."

It would be another twenty-three years, while he was getting his degree in Biology at the University of Texas at Austin, before Ryan would actually explore the sea for the first time, but he immediately knew it as if he had been born to it. Within six months of being certified to dive, he completed his Instructor certification and began teaching others to explore the underwater world.

Then one day while he was diving in the Bay Islands of Honduras, he took a camera underwater for the first time. Nothing would ever be the same. "Looking at the reef through a camera allowed me to see common ocean creatures in a whole new way, and it gave me a way to share my passion for the sea and its marvelous citizens with those I love. It is now difficult to get me in the water without a camera. I am never completely happy unless I am in the sea looking through a lens."

Ryan's diving career took a giant leap forward when he joined StarDive, a group of adventurous divers who raise money for ill and abused children. "StarDive is the brainchild of David Leonard, a philanthropist, diver, and writer who lives in New York. He put together this diving excursion to Costa Rica in 1997 to raise money for children's charities and he solicited participants by email. There were 18 of us who met for the first time on that trip in Costa Rica and we formed such an incredible bond and had such amazing adventures that StarDive has become of a tight nit family of divers that do at least one big fund-raising trip every year and participate in each other's lives as much as possible outside of diving. StarDive has definitely been the greatest blessing of my life," says Ryan.

While on a StarDive trip at Cocos Island, Costa Rica in May of 2000, Ryan and some of his photographs were filmed for a new Discovery Channel series called "Adventures of the Quest" debuting on the Discovery Channel this fall. The episode will investigate the lifestyles of Giant Pacific Manta Rays, one of Ryan's favorite subjects.

Since the first trip in 1997, StarDive has been on adventures to far flung and exciting destinations around the world and raised over $60,000 for child abuse foundations, including the Austin Children's Shelter, the Child Abuse Prevention Program in New York City, the Boy's and Girl's Club of Portland, Maine, and the Starlight Foundation of New York. StarDive now has its own foundation, the Marion F. Griswold Charitable Trust for the Prevention of Child Abuse. Douglas Ryan's donates 10% of all sales of his work to the trust.

If you are interested in purchasing any of the photos you see here, they are available by contacting Doug: mailto:stardiverdwr@hotmail.com

All photos are the exclusive copyright of Douglas Ryan and may not be published or reproduced in an form without permission.