Cathy Church’s name is synonymous with underwater photography in the Cayman Islands. Cathy has been sharing her secrets for taking photographs below the ocean waves for 40 years now – and she has no plans to stop any time soon.

Hers is a career that is the result of successfully marrying her great passions in life: marine biology, diving and underwater photography.

It all began in the summer of 1965 when she was a student of biology at the University of Michigan. She met Jim church (whom she later married) that summer. He was a writer for Skin Diver magazine, and he taught Cathy how to take photographs under water.

Needless to say, the equipment in those days was basic at best but this did nothing to dampen the couple’s enthusiasm and often called on their ingenuity to find solutions to the obstacles presented by the underwater world.

The advent of digital cameras has removed many of the old challenges. “Digital cameras make it easy for everyone to try taking pictures underwater because they can see their results right away and fix their technique,” says Cathy. “In the earlier days, we would shoot hundreds of photos before having the slightest idea how they were turning out.”

Following a Master’s in Marine Zoology, she says, she found her options limited due to certain attitudes towards women at the time. “I could not get a diving job as a woman, I could not get a research position in marine biology because I was a woman,” she says. And so she turned instead to teaching: she taught science in school and, in partnership with Jim, she taught underwater photography and wrote articles for Skin Diver magazine, as well as co-authoring several books.

Cathy and her then husband visited Cayman for the first time in 1971, when friends were in the process of building a dive resort. “When it was finished, they proposed that if we would help their guests with their cameras, we could stay at their new Spanish Bay Reef Hotel for free. That worked out great. We brought down groups of students for up to eight week-long classes a summer for eight years,” she recalls.  

Cathy established her own photo centre at Sunset House in 1988 and continues to share her passion with her students.

Cathy’s work has appeared in numerous publications and her advertising clients include prestigious names such as Nikon, Kodak and the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism. A pioneer in her field, in recognition of her contribution to recreational diving she was inducted into the Women Divers Hall of Fame in 2000 and the International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame in 2008. She is also currently president of the Academy of Underwater Arts and Sciences.

“Getting such an award is an inspiration to do more. It makes you work harder to honour the next person in line. Everyone wants to be thanked for doing a good job, and we all need to remember to thank and praise everyone who works around us,” she says.

Photo caption: Cathy with her DEMA Hall of Fame Reaching Out Award in 2000