Eric Crowell

President & CEO, UnityPoint Health – Des Moines
Underwater Photography Enthusiast

When Eric Crowell became a certified scuba diver 24 years ago, it didn’t take him long to decide that photography would be his main underwater passion.

The president and CEO of UnityPoint Health- Des Moines has dived in some spectacular spots — Florida,  Australia, the Cayman Islands and Fiji, for example.

It was on a trip to the Cayman Islands that he decided he would forevermore see moray eels, sharks, corals and colorful fish mostly through the viewfinder of a camera. A bubble-fronted,  very nice camera. 

“I saw that blue wall with 200-foot visibility, and I thought, ‘Holy cow! This is where I want to be.’ ”

He studied with Cathy Church, a photographer in the Caymans. He stopped calling himself simply a diver. “The diving is just the bus pass to get me to the photography,” Crowell said. 

Now, he jumps in the water with several thousand dollars’ worth of fancy digital camera equipment. He’s logged approximately 340 dives, most of them with his dive buddy wife, Kathy.

It’s been a colorful experience, as these stunning photos show. n