An award winning National Geographic photographer involved in deep-sea life and a regular to the waters around Bermuda is giving a two-day lecture on his deep sea adventures.

Emory Kristof, who is currently a photographer in residence at the famed explorers magazine, kicked off two evenings of lectures last night at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute. He will revisit some of his past accomplishments again tonight, shedding light on his incredible adventures which include photographing the world?s most famous shipwreck, and working on an IMAX film on deep hot water volcanic vents.

Travelling back to the Island for the lecture also reconnected him with his longtime friends and Bermuda?s own explorer, Teddy Tucker and his daughter Wendy, whom he met in the 1960?s.

In 1971, Mr. Kristof came to Bermuda with author Peter Benchley to write a story for National Geographic on the shipwrecks in Bermuda that Mr. Tucker was exploring.

The story ended up being a general story about the Island and included Nonsuch Island and a couple of different events that occurred on the Island at the time.

?We initially started working on the wrecks with Teddy who was working on a Spanish wreck. We got some underwater pictures on the wreck but it ended up being an article more general on Bermuda,? he said.

Mr. Kristof began his career as a photographic intern with the National Geographic society in June of 1963 after graduating from the University of Maryland with a bachelor of science degree in journalism.

He worked on general assignments for the magazine but his main passion was underwater photography and his work evolved into more underwater projects.

?I started out doing a lot of industrial type ?I started out doing a lot of industrial type photography but I had wanted to do underwater shoots. I was sneaking underwater photographs into my stories and I think the editor got the hint that I wanted to continue with shooting underwater,? he said.

In Bermuda during the 1980?s, Mr. Kristof spent four summers with Mr. Tucker and Dr. Eugenie Clark photographing (from a deep diving submersible at 2,000 feet) six-gill sharks and baiting them to see their interaction.

?There are only two species of six gill shark, most sharks have five gills, but the thought is that the six gill shark is a more primitive shark,? he explained.

The exploration spurned a major National Geographic story and a number of television shows on the deep-water shark and Mr. Kristof said it started a whole new series of new areas to explore.

?I?m really interested in deep water animals because we know so little about them.?

Mr. Tucker still continues to explore the waters off Bermuda and he explained some of the strange creatures he had pulled from the Bermuda depths.

In an effort to continue exploring the area, Mr. Kristof is hoping to team up with his old friend and bring to the exploration of Bermuda?s deep sea, which can reach up to 12,000 ft. in areas, some of the new technology that he has helped to design.

The latest invention that Mr. Kristof has helped to design is a 17-inch optical glass sphere that encases a digital camera which is released into any depth in the ocean and is able photograph in a more efficient way.

?The sphere is very elegant and inexpensive and can be dropped at any depth. It works a lot more efficiently and a lot cheaper than it the technology we used 20 years ago,? Mr. Kristof said.

Over his two nights of lectures, Mr. Kristof will be showing some rarely seen images of his work and he will also speak on the discovery and then production of the 1991 IMAX film ?Titanica?, which he said he used high-intensity HMI lighting for the photographs of the lost ship. The work on the IMAX film and the use of the HMI lighting, he said, inspired the way James Cameron shot the ship in his epic film ?Titanic?.

?Building the HMI lights changed how people do underwater photography,? Mr. Kristof said.

Along with undersea explorer and Jason Project founder Dr. Robert Ballard, Mr. Kristof was awarded the American Society of Magazine Publishers Innovation in Photography Award for the coverage and photography of the .

Some of the IMAX film?s cut a way shots of the submarine were done in Bermuda with the help of Mr. Tucker, he added.

Tonight?s audience will also be treated to the video version of Mr. Kristof?s newest IMAX creation ?Volcanoes of the Deep Sea?. The film, which opened this summer at IMAX theatres in North America, offers never seen footage of the deep ocean?s volcanic vents and the abundance of life found near the 60 vents found in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

?It?s not as impressive as seeing it on the seven storey screen of an IMAX theatre but it is still a glimpse into one of the true natural wonders of the planet. It?s something that you look at and go ?wow, this is really neat?.

?If you put it on an IMAX screen you can really see how big these things are.?

His next adventure will be to explore the Bonda Sea in Indonesia, an area he said is the centre for the evolution of its own unique shallow water species.

Mr. Kristof will also show examples of some of the strange and unusual species that have been discovered in the deeper realms of the ocean.

?I like to photograph sea monsters and ghost ships,? he said.

?But it?s the last unexplored territory and there are actually things to learn here that are worth knowing,? he added.