Emory Kristof

Esteemed National Geographic photographer Emory Kristof is best known for his pioneering work in the deep ocean.

He’s photographed the Titanic (he was a member of the team that first discovered the wreck in 1985, and he showed Oscar-nominated director James Cameron how to illuminate and photograph the ship for his epic 1997 film), went on a quest for the elusive Architeuthis Longimanus (a giant squid, measuring over 60 ft, located off of the coast of New Zealand), and led an expedition to recover the bell of the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1995.

Throughout his impressive career, Kristof who started off as an intern at National Geographic in 1963 – has designed, built and successfully operated sophisticated photographic systems that have revolutionized oceanographic studies. He has been a trailblazer in the use of robot cameras and remotely operated vehicles and created the preliminary designs of the electronic camera system for the Argo vehicle, which found the Titanic.

Kristof has won many awards, including the J.Winton Lemen Fellowship Award by the National Press Photographers Association, “….for being one of our profession’s most imaginative innovators with particular attention to pictures from beneath the ocean” in 1998.