One of my areas of research for painting is scuba diving and underwater photography. Underwater photography, which I use to record the fleeting impressions of the dive has always surprised me in its unexpectedly sensuous richness, its visual complexity and its depth of meaning. The photographs provide both a visual record of the dive and a reminder of other experiences rooted in memory and the body. The photographs, while being representations of the dive site, function not only as a visual record but also as reminders of temperature, sensation, and the experience of witnessing and moving physically through space of the subject matter. The dive inspires the work. The paintings derived form the photographs, therefore, are not copies of the photograph but, like the water paintings, are an interaction between artistic expression and observation. During the dives, I am a participant in the experience and observation of nature. Artistic research is done during the event through both personal experience and documentation. The paintings are based as much on the sensory, ephemeral, and experiential information derived from the experience itself, as on the mediated content of the photograph.