Image

Underwater Photography Pioneer

Early in his career, Harold “Doc” Edgerton (shown here working on the WHOI dock in 1959), built underwater flashes and cameras for famed marine explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Operating cameras in murky ocean waters often proved challenging, so Edgerton developed a device he called a “pinger” (pictured) that emitted sound waves and helped researchers locate the camera in the water relative to the seafloor. In 1972, Edgerton, who was a professor at MIT, participated in the H. Burr Steinbach Visiting Scholars Program, at WHOI.(Photo by Jan Hahn, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)