(see the full-size close-up below)

This is a straight photograph with no digital manipulations. For years I tried to shoot this scene as I saw it but no camera provided a wide enough underwater lens until Nikonos came out with their incredible 15mm wide angle lens. This lens was so remarkable that you could photograph a six foot tall diver from head to toe just three feet away from him. Combined with the Nikonos V underwater camera it was our smallest and easiest handled combo for professional underwater photographers.

This is the Jug Hole on north Florida’s Ichetucknee River near its source. It appears as a six-foot-wide hole in the floor of the river. Surrounded by low growing grass it is clear that a current flows from this spring. This current is so strong that a diver intending to enter the Jug Hole must cling to rock outcrops and pull himself headfirst into the hole, then crab his way down the inside wall until he is out of the force of water trying to eject him. Once free of this he can continue descending as this diver does into the large room at the bottom. Directly beneath this 30-foot-deep hole, one lands on a mound of white sand. Looking up toward the opening it appears that you are on the bottom of a large stone jug.

I crawled to the furthest corner to frame this scene of diver Mike Wisenbaker descending the blue column of light into this crystal clear spring. Currently a Florida State Park, divers are no longer permitted to dive the Jug Hole for fear that years of divers’ exhalations percolating through the overhead roof have weakened it and may one day cause a cave-in.

This is a close-up image from the full-size print, showing the detail involved