CHRISTOPHER SWANN has been involved in the professional diving arena for many years—as a diver, photographer and writer. He first came in contact with oilfield diving in 1965 when he made a film on the first commercial lock-out diving bell Purisima after coming to California from his native England to take a course at the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara.

He has worked for the French subsea company Comex, for the Undersea Division of Brooks Institute, as a photographic technician in the North Sea oilfields and on the administrative staff of a small independent oil company in Indonesia. He was the head of the photographic department, and a crew member with the Johnson Sea Link I submersible, at the Harbor Branch Foundation in Florida. He has done archaeological work in the Mediterranean and dived on wharf inspection and maintenance contracts. In 1973, he was a subject in two 1,000ft chamber dives at the Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina.

His articles and photographs have appeared in publications in the United States, Britain, Germany and France. In 2008, he received the Historical Diving Society Dr. Art Bachrach Award For Contributions to the Literature of Diving History.

He lives in California with his wife Hadda.