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Before he was a marine photographer,.
Capt. Scott Kerrigan spent more than 20 years as a professional sportfishing captain or mate. Then two things happened that changed his life. First, he won the Boy Scout Tournament as a mate in St. Thomas in 1990, which gave him a “bump in cash.” The second, however, was not so pleasant. As he was wiring a blue marlin, he didn’t notice a loop of line wrapped around his hand. The fish surged, and the ensuing struggle damaged his middle finger so badly that the top joint had to be amputated. “I never fished another day after that as a professional fisherman,” he told Worldwide Angler. The odd thing about the accident, he said, was that “Our crew was a well-oiled machine and it was our 720th or so blue marlin release.” In the end, the accident was “the proverbial kick in the pants” he needed to start his photography career.

Opportunity is often borne from adversity and experience. Kerrigan’s time on the water as a professional fisherman has helped him as a photographer, just as winning the Boy Scout Tournament helped him buy his first equipment. “Photography was always an interest…I shot photos for 10 or 12 years as a hobbyist…As a traveling crew member, I saw stuff that was as good or better than pictures I had seen in sportfishing magazines,” he says. Because of his intimate knowledge of how a crew works, Kerrigan contends that he knows “how to stay out of the way” when shooting, and therefore gets invited to come down to the decks of the boats he rides on. This is different than most marine photographers, who are instructed or choose to stay on the bridge. Kerrigan thinks that he gets his shots because he is “able to see and anticipate what is about to happen next.”

To view more of Scott's work, please visit http://www.scottkerrigan.com