Emmy Award Winning Underwater Director of Photography, Photographer & Tech Instructor: Becky Kagan Schott
Becky has always been attracted to water, but her curiosity about what lay beneath the waves became an obsession from a young age. She always knew documenting the underwater world is what she wanted to do. Becky is a 5 time Emmy-Award winning underwater cameraman, photographer and technical Diving Instructor whose work can be seen on major networks including National Geographic, Discovery Channel, and The Travel Channel. She specializes in bringing back video from challenging aquatic environments from filming in caves, under ice, shipwrecks to sharks. Becky has over 23 years of diving experience logging thousands of hours underwater allowing her to be comfortable in a variety of environments. Filming underwater can be challenging and dangerous to divers with little experience in technical environments. Her decades of training and experience means she is comfortable, safe, and can work with a team to produce a stunning product.
Her projects have taken her all over the world from the Arctic to Antarctic and many exciting locations in between. Her biggest passion is capturing haunting images of shipwrecks in the Great Lakes. She combines her artistic style with powerful stories of tragedy, mystery and survival to ignite the viewers imagination
Becky enjoys diving in each of the Great Lakes and has participated in projects helping to document shipwrecks in 3D twice for the National Park Service in Isle Royale National Park. She has also participated in several exploration projects searching for new wrecks in Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. In 2011 she was worked with NOAA on a documentary called “Project Shiphunt” searching for shipwrecks with a group of high school students. They found the Schooner M.F. MERRICK lost in 1889 and ETURA in over 300 feet of icy cold water off of Presque Isle Michigan. Becky was one of the first divers on both wrecks to film the exploration. The dives were cold, deep and very challenging. The use of Closed Circuit Rebreathers, mixed gases and experienced safety team were used to conduct the dives. In June of 2015 Becky was invited to assist in the exploration of the Alice E. Wilds found by Shipwreck Explorers off of Milwaukee Michigan. The wreck also sits in over 300 feet of water. Becky’s passion for the Great Lakes has only grown fiercer in the past few years and visiting more incredible sites and capturing hauntingly beautiful imagery on these preserved wrecks.