Rod Farb's State of Art Rebreather

Biography Rod Farb, a professional photographer with a graduate degree in biology, has worked on assignment for National Geographic magazine and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). During a thirty-five year diving career, he has guided film expeditions of Howard Hall, Stan Waterman, Jack and John McKenney, North Carolina Center for Public Television and NOAA, written scripts for three documentary films, published two books, Shipwrecks. Diving the Graveyard of the Atlantic (2nd ed., 1991) and Guide to Shipwrecks: North Carolina (1990), and has been featured in four television documentary films - Sand Tigers I and II, about the Atlantic sand tiger shark in North Carolina waters; Quest for the Monitor, about his historic expedition to the wreck of the famous American ironclad; and Mission to the Monitor, about the shipwrecks, U.S.S. Monitor and U.S.S. Tecumseh. The 1990 recipient of the first research permit awarded by NOAA to a civilian for an expedition to the U. S. S. Monitor, he became the first person to dive the Monitor using scuba equipment; his expeditions to the ironclad in 1991-1994 were the first consecutive-year visits ever allowed by NOAA.

Other accomplishments include the development of computer video image digitization (CVID) for underwater mapping; PADI Foundation grant recipient for study of coral reefs in the Caribbean by CVID (1992); assignment as National Geographic magazine's photographer of the C.S.S. Alabama shipwreck in France (1992 & 1993); assignment as NOAA photographer for Monitor Archaeological Research and Structural Survey project (1993), and election as Fellow National of the Explorers Club of New York (1994). A frequent lecturer at dive shows and film festivals throughout the United States and Canada, he has also appeared as a guest on ABC's Good Morning America. His photography, videography and articles have appeared in periodicals, books and exhibitions worldwide.