Above & Below Photography 

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About Us
                               Larry and Denise Tackett 

     We are professional photographers and naturalists specializing in underwater and terrestrial natural history and travel subjects. We're currently taking a time-out and have both gone back to school. We continue to teach photography and lead classes about working with images and Adobe Photoshop. We continue to write for dive magazines about travel and photography. 
     We are represented by several stock photo agencies and our images have been widely published in books and magazines worldwide. Our work has appeared in magazines such as National Wildlife, Islands, BBC Wildlife, Skin Diver, Ocean Realm, Asian Diver, Unterwasser, Tauchen, Canadian Wildlife, Popular Science, Sport Diver, National Geographic Kids, Geo, and many others. 
     We were contributing editors to the now defunct Skin Diver magazine and now serve as Travel Editors to Asian Diver magazine and contributors to Sport Diver magazine. We are advisors to Coral Realm, a web-based marine animal natural history and dive travel database. Denise co-authored the travel book, Insight Pocket Guide: Maldives. Our first marine book, “Reef Life, Natural History and Behaviors of Marine Fishes and Invertebrates” was published in 2002. Our Reef Life calendar, featuring some of our best images, has been published annually for several years. Our newest book, Underwater Photography, A Guide to Creative Techniques and Essential Equipment, was published in 2005. It was recently reissued with a new cover in the US. Our annual Reef Life Calendar is available on our website and various dive and aquarium shops.

     Our work has been featured in past and upcoming segments of Ushuaïa Nature and we were the subject of a National Geographic Television Sea Stories episode featuring Denise’s work on pygmy seahorses. We’ve also contributed to BBC and National Geographic Television productions about the  mimic octopus.   We've also produced two short videos of our own: Stayin' Alive and The Littlest Seahorse.

In recognition of Denise's work with pygmy seahorses, a pygmy seahorse species was named in her honor: Hippocampus denise.

  Although we lived in the tropical Indo-Pacific area for many years, we presently reside in wild, wonderful West Virginia, where we've become certified Master Naturalists for the state.

Our Equipment 

     In the past we used Nikon F-4 cameras with action finders, and a variety of lenses in Nexus F-4 Pro housings with dual Ikelite 200 strobes and Ultralight strobe arms. For greater than life-size images, we used a Nikon 105mm micro lens and any combination of Nikon dual element +1 and +3 diopters, a Nexus external +3 diopter and/or a Kenko 2X teleconverter.  

    Since we switched to digital we use either a Nikon D2X in an Aquatica housing or a Nikon D200 in a Sea and Sea housing. We prefer the D2X mainly because we prefer the larger viewfinder. We continue to use dual Ikelite 200 strobes. The transition to digital was easier than we thought it would be. It really is great not to have to lug film everywhere. The instant gratification of digital cannot be underestimated!

    We shoot underwater video with a Sony DCR VX-2000 video camera in a Gates Products Diego housing and an Amphibico housing. We use a single Kowalski video light (50W) that we either handhold above the subject or mount high on the housing and/or dual HID lights. For very small subjects we use a flat port and diopters to enlarge the subject. We use a tripod for video whenever possible. We edit our video on an Apple computer.

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