Stanton A. Waterman, who died recently, was a five-time Emmy-winning cinematographer and underwater film producer who was born on April 5, 1923.
Waterman first acquired a hand-made Japanese diving mask in the early 1930s, long before they were manufactured in the West or widely available. He began using it as a child in Palm Beach, Florida.
He was the first Maine resident to purchase an aqualung, designed by Jacques Cousteau, after returning home from service in the US Navy during World War II.
Waterman earned an English degree from Dartmouth College, where he studied with Robert Frost, in 1946. From 1954 to 1958, he owned and operated a diving charter business in the Bahamas, where he began his scuba diving career. His big break came in 1965, when he shot a year-long family vacation in Tahiti. The work was purchased by National Geographic and aired on television. He worked as a producer and photographer on the 1971 film Blue Water, White Death, which was the first time a great white shark was filmed for cinema.
Waterman was the subject of The Man Who Loves Sharks, a Discovery Channel biographical special. He won the first father-son Emmy for the National Geographic Explorer production Dancing With Stingrays, which he co-created with his son.
Television credits include The American Sportsman (1965), The Bermuda Depths (1978), and The Explorers (1973), as well as film credits such as The Deep (1977) and Jaws of Death (1979). (1977).
He received five Emmy nominations for his work on underwater films and television shows.
Waterman published Sea Salt: Memories and Essays in 2005, with forewords by Peter Benchley and Howard Hall. He also contributed to Ocean Realm magazine with essays. In 2006 Stan Waterman, received a Hans Hass award for underwater film and photography.
At the age of 90, Waterman made his final dive in the Cayman Islands in 2013.
