01/07/2026
When I was a kid, an theater opened up near me. I thought it was the coolest thing imaginable and begged my parents to take me whenever I could. But this was before Avatar, The Dark Knight and The Avengers, so the only movie shot on IMAX in the mid-90s was a nature documentary about wildlife off of the coast of California.
I grew up, got a job, started my company, had kids and pretty much forgot about that movie I had watched so many times in the theater.
Then last week, I stepped off of a beach packed with tourists in La Jolla, California and into my childhood imagination. Led by dive master Michael Timm, a retired German Navy combat vet (), I flew through forests of kelp into a world of shy Horn Sharks, playful Sea Lion pups, diving Cormorants and territorial Garibaldi fish. Michael told me that in his 20 years of diving off of San Diego, he had seen the kelp forests recede due to pollution and hundreds of Sea Lions die due to algae blooms induced by warming seas.
The little Osmo handheld camera I used to shoot this has more resolution than IMAX cameras did in the 90s, but whether it’s on the big screen or small, it will never be the same as seeing it in real life. I hope we can figure out how to protect ecosystems like California’s kelp forests so my kids can explore them 30 years from now.
