Profiles & Interviews

If you love scuba diving, deep dark waters, decompression procedures and mixed gas theory, you must have heard the name many times: Bret Gilliam, a revolutionary trailblazer in the dive world. Over the past few decades, he has changed the way scuba diving is practiced.

John Lautermilch, an award-winning American artist from Saint Louis, Missouri, and graduate of the Washington University School of Fine Arts, has created paintings for 60 years, which have been shown in numerous solo exhibitions and include commissions for individual collectors and institutions. Among his plethora of paintings of the natural world are artworks featuring vivid and dynamic underwater scenes with divers and coral reefs.

Jakub Šimánek lives for diving and dives for a living. He inherited his passion for the underwater world from his father at a young age. Currently, a Factory Instructor Trainer for the Liberty closed circuit rebreather (CCR), Jakub has been a part of the development team at the dive equipment manufacturer Divesoft since 2012.

In my line of work as a dive industry professional, I attend a lot of dive shows and get to meet a lot of people, most of them nice and interesting in various ways. It was also at a dive show in Italy, many years ago, that I first met Andrea Donati and his partner, Daniela Spaziani, of Ponza Diving.

California artist Amadeo Bachar holds degrees in both marine biology and science illustration and has published work with National Geographic, United Nations, Scientific American, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the US Geological Survey (USGS), among others. X-Ray Mag interviewed the artist to learn more about his artwork and his passion for the marine environment.

Thirty-four-year-old Marissa Eckert is a passionate full-time cave and technical diving instructor who co-owns Hidden Worlds Diving in Fort White, Florida, USA, with her partner, James Draker. When she is not teaching, Eckert enjoys traveling all over the world, exploring new places, hiking through the jungle and doing challenging new dives that help her grow and learn as a diver.