Paul Humann
Photographer / Author

Paul Humann took up scuba diving and underwater photography in the early 1960s. Within a few years, several of his fish portraits were featured in Skin Diver magazine’s memorable Fish of the Month series. Paul became one of PADI’s early dive instructors, holding certification #2222. In 1972 he left a successful law practice in his hometown, Wichita, Kansas, to pioneer today’s live-aboard diving craze as captain/owner of the M/V Cayman Diver, the Caribbean's first successful live-aboard dive cruiser.



Paul’s underwater photographs have appeared in numerous magazines including Skin Diver, Ocean Realm, Sport Diver, Rodale’s Scuba Diving, National Geographic, Audubon, Natural History, National Wildlife, and Ranger Rick. An ABC sports special featured Paul introducing famed Jaws author Peter Benchley to the marine life of Galapagos. Paul has authored two large-format underwater pictorial books and co-authored, with Ned DeLoach, ten marine life field guides including the popular Reef Set trilogy, Reef Fish Identification, Reef Creature Identification and Reef Coral Identification - Florida, Caribbean, Bahamas.



Paul’s work established visual identification criteria for many marine animals. Long hours of observation, documentation, cataloguing and corresponding with dozens of taxonomic scientists were essential steps in the long process. In many instances picture/voucher specimen collection was required to make positive identifications. As a result, many of his pictures were the first ever published of living species in their natural habitat. The specimens from this work now reside in the Smithsonian’s National History collection. These efforts made it possible for underwater naturalists to make valid non-impact biodiversity assessments of reef ecosystems.


His concern for the welfare of the marine environment led him to co-found with Ned DeLoach, the Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF) in 1990. In 2007 Paul received the 2006 DEMA Reaching Out Award for his lifetime achievements in the dive industry and was inducted into the International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame. In 2009, he was honored with the NOGI award for sports and education.

Since 1994, he has been transforming a 2-acre former horse meadow in Davie, Florida into a collection of bamboos, orchids, ferns, bromeliads and over 350 species of palm trees. Named Mango Manor for its 12 producing mango trees, the property now has a water lily pond, fountains and hand-laid mosaic walkways, making it one of the best private tropical gardens in South Florida. A favorite stop for several important garden society tours, Paul’s garden has received acclaim from the Miami Herald, the Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel and the New York Times.

Ned DeLoach
Photographer / Author

Shortly after graduating from Texas Tech University in 1967, Ned DeLoach moved to Florida to dive. During his 20-year teaching career at the high school level in Jacksonville, Florida, Ned was active in the Florida cave diving community, taking photographs, editing educational material for the National Speleological Society’s Cave Diving Section and chronicling the exploits of cave explorer Sheck Exley. During the summers he traveled the Caribbean and Bahamas writing destination pieces for dive magazines.

In 1972 Ned founded New World Productions, with the printing of a 48-page booklet Diving and Recreational Guide to Florida Springs soon followed by Diving Guide to the Florida Keys. After several separate editions, the books were combined and expanded in 1979 into Ned DeLoach’s Diving Guide to Underwater Florida, which is currently in its 11th edition. During these years he produced several 16mm underwater films, including Hidden Rivers of the Maya in 1988, the first full-length documentary shot in the water-filled caves of Yucatan, Mexico.

In 1985, Ned was appointed editor-in-chief of Ocean Realm magazine. He invited Paul Humann, whom he had been introduced to by a mutual friend, to join him as co-editor. After two years they left the magazine business to independently publish marine life field guides. Their first publication, Reef Fish Identification, appeared in 1989.

Over the past two decades the prolific authors/photographers have co-authored ten field guides, and co-founded the Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF) in the early 1990’s. Late in the decade, Ned and his wife Anna lived for an extended period in Bimini, Bahamas where the couple studied and photographed the behavior of reef fishes, which in 2000 resulted in the seminal work Reef Fish Behavior. Over the years Ned and Anna have written a series of columns about marine life for dive related magazines in the United States and Asia. Currently their writing and photography appears in Alert Diver, Scuba Diving and Sport Diver Magazine. Their dive travels are chronicled at www.marinelifeblog.com.

Anna DeLoach
Videographer / Researcher

Formally educated in computer science, Anna took an early retirement from her mainframe computer career to work as a researcher for New World Publications. She started shooting underwater video to assist husband Ned in studying and documenting fish behavior for their book, Reef Fish Behavior: Florida, Bahamas, Caribbean. Her comprehensive video footage proved indispensable for analyzing marine life behaviors detailed in the book and series of articles that she and Ned wrote for Ocean Realm and Scuba Diving Magazine. She and Ned served as Marine Life Editors for Scuba Diving until 2009. 



In 2004 Anna produced Sensational Seas; a DVD anthology of underwater video contributed by filmmakers from around the world. Following the success of that production, she co-produced Sensational Seas Two, which was released in March 2010. The proceeds from those projects are donated to marine conservation organizations including REEF (Reef Environmental Education Foundation), an organization to which she continues to serve as a member of the Board of Trustees. In 2007, she produced another DVD for REEF, Reef Fish Identification: A Beginning Course, which received a Telly award. National Geographic, the Discovery Channel, NOAA’s Ocean Media Center, The National Aquarium, the Smithsonian Oceans Hall and numerous national newscasts have used her video. In 2009 Anna recorded the welcome message that greets guests visiting the National Aquarium in Washington, D.C. She is very proud to be among the 2011 inductees into the Women Divers Hall of Fame.


Anna and Ned currently write a marine wildlife behavior column for Alert Diver Magazine. They also write a regular column, Critter Hunt, for Scuba Diving Magazine and contribute to Sport Diver Magazine. For the past seven years, they have been the resident naturalists at Buddy Dive in Bonaire, where they spend the month of September teaching fish identification and presenting programs about marine life behavior. They began conducting a similar program in 2010 at Eco-Divers Lembeh, in Indonesia. Anna continues to travel extensively and lead group trips with her husband Ned and Paul Humann, and in 2011 created their second blog, BlennyWatcher.com featuring their marine life encounters.

Eric Riesch
Managing Director / Photo Editor

After graduating from Auburn University in 1993 with a PR/Marketing degree, Eric joined New World Publications. His first assignment was to attain a dive certification.  The ol’ adage,  “like a duck to water,” comes to mind, as Eric promptly became both an accomplished diver and underwater photographer.

As the managing director and photo editor of New World Publications, Eric handles all aspects of our publishing business, as well as managing the company’s vast photo library. He has expanded our book distribution from scuba retailers into bookstores, libraries and tourist aquariums. In 1999 he helped develop our identification series into a set of waterproof mini-books entitled the Fish-In-A-Pocket series.

In 2012 he worked to bring our books into the digital ebook format with the release of Reef Fish Identification: Tropical Pacific on Blio.com. His above and below water photographic work has appeared in books, magazines, websites, in catalogs, on DVDs and in tourist aquariums. In 2011 he began contributing regularly to DivePhotoGuide.com for their Critter Corner column.

He develops and maintains the company’s three websites: fishid.com, marinelifeimages.com and marinelifeblog.com. You can contact Eric about the website, our photos, or the book business at eric@fishid.com.