I consider myself to be a passionate, self-mistaught amateur photographer who started off with a Brownie camera as a child, experimented with my parents’ Polaroid, progressed to an SLR before cautiouslyentering the digital age. I am seldom far from my camera or computer these days should an opportunity present itself.

My true love (other than my wife) is underwater photography, having won several competitions through a combination of understanding the subject and its environment, perseverance, creative view-finding, and being in the right place at the right time with the right equipment. Nature photography is my second “lens-love” as nothing can compete with what Mother Nature has to offer, though capturing the connection between people with their environment ranks closely behind.

I’ve been fortunate to have my work recognized in several venues, including competitions such as the North American Nature Photographers Association, Georgia Nature Photographers Association, the Kona Classic Underwater Photography Championship, The Digital Shootout Underwater Competition, and Nature’s Best Photography Magazine.

My wife and I, along with Australian shepherd Kodi, are official snowbirds traveling between Saint Simons Island, Georgia, and Charlotte, Vermont. I retired after a career in early education, most recently as Senior

Research Fellow for the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University. Like most educators needing a second job, I taught scuba diving in Lake Champlain, Vermont for more than three decades. Also, I served as the first General Manager for the Georgia Sea Turtle Center on Jekyll

Island. Now retired, I plan to spend more time thinking about fewer

things, and that includes photography.

squiresjames.photoshelter.com