Chuck Davis

Marine/underwater cinematographer and photographer. From the freezing climes of Antarctica and Greenland to the heat and humidity of the Amazon, Chuck Davis has worked for nearly 40 years as a specialist in marine and underwater photography and cinematography. His motion picture credits include work on several IMAX films, including Ring of Fire (underwater lava scenes), Whales, The Greatest Places, Amazing Journeys, Search for the Great Sharks, and the Academy Award-nominated, Alaska: Spirit of the Wild and The Living Sea (underwater/marine scenes of Monterey Bay).

For over 20 years, Chuck worked as a freelance cinematographer and still photographer with the Cousteau filming teams, working with the late Jacques-Yves Cousteau and his son Jean-Michel onboard vessels, Alcyone and Calypso, during production of the Rediscovery of the World TV series and later, as a director of photography on Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Ocean Adventures PBS television series.

The main thrust in Chuck’s personal work is in helping to stimulate marine environmental awareness and conservation via the use of marine and underwater imagery. His photographs and/or motion picture footage have been published, exhibited and/or presented for advocacy and educational purposes by an number of environmental organizations including the Pacific Marine Mammal Center, Audubon Society, NRDC’s OnEarth, Ocean Conservancy’s Blue Planet, Pew Oceans Commission Reports, WWF/Canada, the American Cetacean Society and Save the Whales Foundation.

Chuck has worked on feature films such as Warner Brothers’ SPHERE, 20th Century Fox/Walden Media’s Chasing Mavericks, Wavelength Pictures’ Tao of Surfing (currently in production) as well as documentary projects for the BBC, CBS, NBC/Universal, Discovery/Learning Channel, and National Geographic Channel. He was the director of photography for the Smithsonian’s Who We Are (a special dome-theater film for the National Museum for the American Indian, in Washington, D.C.), and the avant-garde production, Crystal Palace, filmed in Papua New Guinea for director, Mathias Poledna.

Chuck’s still photographs have been widely published in magazines such as LensWork, B +W, ORION, LIFE, National Geographic, Audubon, Nature’s Best, Outside, French Terre Sauvage, BBC Wildlife, Ocean Realm and numerous Cousteau publications, including the Doubleday expedition books, Cousteau’s Great White Shark, Cousteau’s Papua New Guinea Journey, and Cousteau’s Australia Journey. Davis, as a veteran Cousteau cinematographer, was honored to be one of the interviewees that appeared in Jean-Michel’s Cousteau’s, My Father the Captain: Jacques-Yves Cousteau, a documentary film in tribute to the 100th birthday anniversary of Jacques-Yves Cousteau.