Bill Curtsinger


Bill Curtsinger is an American photographer and writer who publishes on underwater photography and natural history subjects. Curtsinger has photographed thirty-five articles, including six cover stories for National Geographic and a cover story for Life. His photos have also appeared in Smithsonian, Natural History, various scientific journals, and a number of books worldwide.

Early life and education

Curtsinger was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1946 and grew up in Mount Holly, New Jersey near the Pine Barrens region. In later life, he provided photographic images for a book about the sprawling ecosystem at the barrens.
As a teenager, Curtsinger was inspired to photograph the underwater arena by reading Jacques Cousteau's book The Silent World: A Story of Undersea Discovery and Adventure. Cousteau was an award-winning underwater diver who captured exotic underwater videos and photos. Curtsinger also read his grandfather's National Geographic magazines for additional inspiration.
Further inspiration as a teenager would come in the form of a poem by Robinson Jeffers.
At the age of 16, Curtsinger bought his first camera, a Kodak Retinette 1A 35mm rangefinder. The first image he took was a Northern red-bellied turtle at Pine Barrens.

U.S. Navy career

During the Vietnam War, in 1967 after graduating high school at 18, Curtsinger attended Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. After a year he transferred to Arizona State University in Tempe to join their photography program. During the transfer of schools he lost course credits and was deemed a second-year freshman. Because of this, the draft board reclassified him, making him eligible to be drafted into the Vietnam War effort. Curtsinger preemptively joined the United States Navy to circumvent being drafted into the United States Army.
Due to his interest in photography, the Navy excepted Curtsinger into the elite Navy Photo Unit, Atlantic Fleet Combat Camera Group based at Naval Station Norfolk. The camera unit was disestablished in 2018.
After graduating from U.S. Navy Dive School in Key West, Florida, curtsinger earned his Jump Wings in Lakehurst, New Jersey, and attended various U.S. Navy Flight Crew training units around Norfolk, Virginia. He traveled the world on special assignments for the United States Fleet Forces Command of the Atlantic Fleet, including the Navy's research and development department photographing new launches of submarines, such as the USS Narwhal.
Curtsinger spent most of his Navy career covering the United States Navy carrier air operations. He qualified to fly in the F-4 Phantom and A-6 Intruder to carry out his photo missions. He was made an honorary member of the Red Rippers, U.S. Navy Fighter Squadron VF-11, and is credited as having the first color front and back covers in Naval Aviation News.
As a Petty officer third class in 1968 Curtsinger was sent to Antarctica to photograph the National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs at McMurdo Station as part of Operation Deep Freeze, and in 1969 to Palmer Station, for which he was awarded the Antarctica Service Medal.
After six months in the Antarctic, Curtsinger approached Admiral George J. Dufek, who at the time was the director of the Mariner's Museum in Newport News, Virginia, and knew of his work with Naval Aviation News and Antarctic Science. Dufek led the first U.S. science effort in the Antarctic during Operation Highjump. Curtsinger has stated that during a conversation with Dufek, he made a call to Gilbert M. Grosvenor, President of the National Geographic Society to set up a meeting to meet with Curtsinger.
In 1970 Curtsinger was transferred to the United States Navy Reserve as a Petty officer second class, where he served until 1973, resigning to pursue freelance photography for National Geographic.

Freelance career

Curtsinger is one of the first underwater photographers to capture extensive images of marine life under the polar ice in Antarctica. He had been a freelance photographer since leaving the U.S. Navy with his photographic imagery focusing on underwater, natural history, maritime archaeology, people, culture, environments and wildlife. He has photographed thirty-three articles, including six cover stories, for National Geographic. Curtsinger's photos have also appeared on the cover of Orion, Life and Natural History magazines with stories in a number of other magazines such as BBC Wildlife and Smithsonian.
The subjects of Curtsinger's photographs have included species and natural systems such as whales, walruses, penguins, dolphins, seals, sea turtles and sharks. His stories have featured locations such as Antarctica, Canada, Argentina, Africa and The Caroline Islands of the tropical Pacific.
Curtsinger's work also includes numerous textbooks, journals and aquarium displays and he has been a contributor to Gulf of Maine Research Institute publications and website. He has eight titled published books including Extreme Nature: Images from the World's Edge, a four hundred page retrospective of his career, published in 2005 by White Star Publishers in nine languages.
Curtsinger has stated that he pitched his first assignment with National Geographic to Bob Gilka because he knew the magazine had not published any articles about the peninsula. Having spent six months in the cold barren landscape of Antarctica he knew that the peninsula was more interesting and more biological diverse than what was previously published in the Geographic. His very first article was a cover story in the November 1971 issue of National Geographic, "Antarctica's Nearer Side" by Samuel W. Matthews.

Grey reef shark

In January 1995 National Geographic published an article photographed and written by Curtsinger about grey reef sharks. In a subsection of the story, he reminisces about a 1973 encounter with the same species of sharks in the Micronesian lagoon in the Caroline Islands.
After this encounter he only needed minor reconstructive surgery to his hand and shoulder. He has stated that grey reef sharks are extremely territorial, suspect in many attacks on indigenous islanders throughout Oceania and was most likely driving away a perceived competitor or predator.

Shipwrecks

Curtsinger has also photographed many shipwrecks throughout his career, like the Mary Rose at Portsmouth Harbour, which was active during the reign of Henry the VIII. He has also photographed the 16th century Basque whaling ship off the coast of Labrador, the 17th century Swedish warship Kronan that sank in the Baltic Sea off the Swedish island of Öland and a 14th-century Bronze Age merchant ship, which was the oldest known shipwreck at that time.
In 1991 he captured the sunken fleet of Operation Crossroads at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Operation Crossroads was a classified undertaking by the U.S. military to test nuclear weapons underwater in 1946. National Geographic ran a story about the underwater wreckage in their June 1992 issue authored by John L. Elliot and photographed by Curtsinger. Also, a scientific journal was published for the United States Department of the Interior, The Archeology of the Atomic Bomb, featuring select images from Curtsinger.

Firsts

  • First colored photographs published in the Naval Aviation News
  • First published underwater photographs of right whales Argentina
  • First published underwater photographs of narwhal whales
  • First underwater photograph of leopard seals
  • First photojournalist to cover the Mary Rose shipwreck.
  • First photographs of emperor penguins swimming underwater
  • First photograph of a Blainville's beaked whale mother and calf.

    Inspiring others

As new generations of photographers enter the field of photography, some have been inspired by Curtsinger's work, such as Brian Skerry. In a 2021 article in The Maine Magazine, Skerry recalls Curtsinger turning down a National Geographic photo shoot of the 1717 pirate shipwreck Whydah Gally, buried in the sand off Cape Cod. Curtsinger turned down the job due to scheduling issues, but put in a good word for Skerry, who in turn, took the job. Skerry had his photos published in the May 1999 issue of National Geographic.

Personal life

In 1972, during Curtsinger's second photo assignment with National Geographic about salt marshes, he moved to Maine, where in 1974 he married Kate Mahoney. They had two children together, Justin and Owen. In June 2003, Mahoney died from a seven-year battle with breast cancer. Curtsinger and Mahoney were married for twenty-nine years and during that time, Mahoney was responsible for the organization and sales of Curtsinger's stock photos business, which she created. Mahoney was a founding member of Peregrine Press located in Portland, Maine.
With the advance of the internet and declining stock photo sales, Curtsinger left Maine and moved to Port Townsend, Washington in 2006. He became the co-owner, along with his second wife Sue Ohlson, of Sunrise Coffee Company.
Even though Curtsinger in no longer a freelancer in the field of photography, he continues to photograph and in 2021 collaborated with Kenneth Brower on the book Curtsinger: Reflections on the Life and Adventures of Bill Curtsinger.

Awards and recognition

1st rowNavy Good Conduct MedalNational Defense Service MedalNational Defense Service Medal