Books by Eric Douglas

Thriller fiction and Non-fiction

  • Home
  • Mike Scott Thrillers
    • Held Hostage: Search for the Juncal
    • Water Crisis: Day Zero
    • Turks and Chaos: Hostile Waters
    • The 3rd Key: Sharks in the Water
    • Oil and Water: Crash in Curacao
    • Return to Cayman: Paradise Held Hostage
    • Heart of the Maya: Murder for the Gods
    • Wreck of the Huron: Cuban Secrets
    • Guardians’ Keep: Mystery below the Adriatic
    • Flooding Hollywood: Fanatics at the Dam
    • Cayman Cowboys: Reefs Under Pressure
  • Withrow Key
    • Lyin’ Fish
    • Tales from Withrow Key
  • Agent AJ West
  • About the Author
    • Publicity and Interviews
  • Nonfiction
    • For Cheap Lobster
    • Heart Survivor: Recovery After Heart Surgery
    • Oral History
      • Batter Up!
      • Memories of the Valley
      • WV Voices of War / Common Valor
      • Capturing Memories: How to Record Oral Histories
    • Dive-abled: The Leo Morales Story
    • Keep on, Keepin’ On: A Breast Cancer Story
    • WV Voices of War / Common Valor
    • Russia: The New Age
    • Scuba Diving Safety
  • Free Short Fiction
  • Other Fiction
    • Sea Turtle Rescue and Other Stories
    • River Town
You are here: Home / Archives for Diving

Sunlight prints give photography a new-old look

August 16, 2018 By Eric Douglas

Original Image. Seven Gill Shark in the Oregon Coast Aquarium. (Yes, I was diving in the aquarium. )

One of the greatest losses with digital photography is that we never print our pictures. We share them on social media and on our phones, but we never see them hanging on the wall.

Early in my career in scuba diving, I was fortunate to see a photo show by Ernie Brooks. It was simply black and white photos of air bells underwater. I was mesmerized.

With those two things in mind, I set out to turn my own underwater photography on its ear. I experimented with converting my photos to black and white. I frequently dive in lakes so shifting to black and white didn’t lose much.

While I liked the effect, I thought I could do more.

Enter the sunlight print, also known as cyanotype. Cyanotype printing is an original photo printing technique, first used around 1842. Cyanotypes are made by mixing two chemicals (ammonium iron citrate and potassium ferricyanide) and treating paper, cloth or canvas, making it sensitive to ultraviolet light. The sun turns the chemical blue while whatever is shaded stays white.

One of the earliest uses for cyanotype was for naturalists to capture images of plants. The same process is used to create “blue prints” of maps and drawings.

 

I first learned how to make cyanotypes in a class at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. While there I made contact prints and later experimented with prints of things, like plants, glasses and crystals. Anything that would bend the light.

Converted to a black and white negative.

To make contact prints, you take a digital image (either a scan or a digital photo) and then reverse it in Photoshop. Printed out on a clear paper, it become a full-size negative.

In college, I had learned about black and white photography and printing my own images so this was nothing new. The cool part about cyanotypes that instead of hiding away in a darkroom to make images, you do it in the sun.

Here are some examples of the work.

  

How To

  1. Find images that are sharp and clear, with a simple subject and a clean background.
  2. Using photo editing software create black and white versions of your photographs.
    1. Take a critical look at these images. Edit out any that don’t stand up to the loss of color.
  3. Reverse the image, turning it into a “negative”.
  4. Print the negative image on a piece of acetate photo paper made for use with inkjet printers.
    1. This is a contact print so print it out the size you expect from the final cyanotype.
  5. Mix the chemicals in a glass container, but just a little at a time. Literally, a capful or two of each chemical is enough.
  6. Treated paper, before exposure.

    Brush the mixture on a piece of art paper. (You can use a lot of different papers and fabrics.) I prepare 10 to 20 papers at a time.

    1. Use a foam brush for an even coat. Try using a bristle brush and leaving streaks in the coating for a unique look.
    2. Use a bathroom with no windows. Normal room lights are okay, but avoid exposure to UV light.
    3. Wrap the dry papers in a black plastic garbage bag to keep them from becoming exposed to the sun.
  7. Place a negative on top of the cyanotype paper and set it in the sun.
    1. Exposure takes five to 10 minutes, depending on the sun.
    2. Use an old picture frame, or a darkroom contact printer, to compress the negative to the paper for the sharpest print.
    3. If it is too light, repeat the process, but increase the time in the sun.
  8. Stop the exposure by soaking the print in fresh, running water. No “fixer” is necessary.
  9. Let the print dry and enjoy.
  10. Noon sun will give the sharpest image, but other times of day when the sun changes angles will change how your prints look.

Where to find the materials

Cyanotype Chemical kits are available through Photographers Formulary for $24.95. The description says it produces 25 to 50 prints, but my experience has been it produces many more prints than that.

For the acetate paper, I use Pictorico Premium OHP Transparency Film available through B and H photo online or your local specialty photo store. It is designed for use with Inkjet printers.

For the prints, I use a variety of art papers, available through your local arts and crafts store. I’ve recently been using a white, acid-free card stock for scrapbooking. Different papers give different textures to the image.

Filed Under: Diving, Photography

Take a quiz, win an audiobook!

June 6, 2018 By Eric Douglas

Update: This contest is now closed. 

 

Take the Mike Scott thriller quiz and you might win a free audiobook!

You may need to look around the website to answer a few of the questions, but all the answers are online.

All entries must be submitted by Midnight (EDT) June 20. Promo codes only available to residents of North America or with access to the Audible US store.

[os-widget path=”/author1/mike-scott-thriller-quiz” of=”author1″ comments=”false”]

Filed Under: Adventure, Books, Diving, New Releases

Turks and Chaos: Hostile Waters audiobook now available

May 22, 2018 By Eric Douglas

Turks and Chaos: Hostile Waters, the ninth thriller in the Mike Scott series, is now available as an audiobook on Audible, Amazon and ITunes.

The story

Armed gunmen board a liveaboard dive boat near Turks and Caicos in this sea story/action thriller. News photographer Mike Scott is on a dive vacation and gets taken hostage when the theft doesn’t go as planned. When the identity of the head pirate is exposed, he declares that all the passengers will die when they reach their destination. It’s up to Mike, the passengers and crew to overcome the pirates and save their own lives. It doesn’t help matters that there is a mole on board feeding the pirates information and they are heading right into a storm. Now they must rebel against the pirates and take the boat back before time runs out…

Turks and Chaos: Hostile Waters is set on a liveaboard trip in the Turks and Caicos. The real trip was hosted by ScubaRadioTM and the story features several show cast members. Greg Holt, Pup Morse and several others lent their voices to the narration as well, so you’ll be able to hear the real characters voice their parts. CJ Goodearl, “the voice of Mike Scott”, served as the narrator.

If you’ve never tried an audiobook but think you might want to give it a shot, this link will let you start a 30 day Audible free trial and you get Turks and Chaos.

Douglas’ Mike Scott series of thriller stories features diving, beautiful locations and the environment.

“I grew up watching Jacques Cousteau on television. When I created Mike Scott, I wanted to inspire people to love the ocean and go diving, just like Cousteau did for me,” Douglas said.

Get it on iTunes: 

Get it on Audible: 

Get it on Amazon:

Filed Under: Adventure, Books, Diving, Travel

Casting Mike Scott?

May 7, 2018 By Eric Douglas

The 9th Mike Scott adventure.

Eric recently joined the crew from the syndicated talk radio show ScubaRadioTM to discuss who would play Mike Scott in a movie based on Eric’s novels. A number of actors’ names were suggested, but two of the top choices were Alex O’Laughlin and Scott Eastwood.

Everyone agreed on the first choice for the actor to play the role of Mike’s fiancee Dr. Francesca (Frankie) DeMarco: Gal Gadot.

Listen to the discussion here (it’s been edited to keep the discussion on task. Listen to the entire episode on Hour 1).

https://www.booksbyeric.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/SR_5-5-18_HOUR1-actors.mp3

If you have any other suggestions for actors to play the role of Mike Scott, or Frankie, let us know!

You can also listen to an announcement about the new audiobook for Turks and Chaos:

https://www.booksbyeric.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/SR_5-5-18_HOUR1-tc-audiobook.mp3

Or the audiobook commercial for all of Eric’s audiobooks.

https://www.booksbyeric.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Eric-Douglas-spot-for-SR.mp3

Filed Under: Adventure, Books, Diving

Single-use plastic the bane of our existence

April 22, 2018 By Eric Douglas

Photo by Bob Daemmrich/Polaris/eyevine from an article in the publication Nature. https://www.nature.com/news/bottles-bags-ropes-and-toothbrushes-the-struggle-to-track-ocean-plastics-1.20432

I am sitting outside on my patio as I write this, listening to an array of songbirds singing while my neighbor mows his grass.

Forty-eight years ago today, the people of the United States got together for the first Earth Day celebration. One of the driving forces behind that original celebration was the book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. She predicted that the sounds of birds singing would be silenced if we didn’t stop using pesticides that were killing birds before they even hatched.

Over the next few years, those pesticides were banned and bipartisan support in Congress passed the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and created the Environmental Protection Agency. All were signed into law by a Republican president.

An issue that rivals pesticides killing birds is the amount of plastic in the ocean.

You have probably seen stories or viral videos showing marine animals tangled in plastic or dead from ingesting it.

“Plastic has been found in more than 60% of all seabirds and in 100% of sea turtles species, that mistake plastic for food. And when animals ingest plastic, it can cause life-threatening problems, including reduced fitness, nutrient uptake and feeding efficiency—all vital for survival,” according to the Ocean Conservancy.

According to the website Plastic Oceans “We are now producing nearly 300 million tons of plastic every year, half of which is for single use. More than 8 million tons of plastic is dumped into our oceans every year.”

There is also a lot of science that indicates that microplastics are in our bodies, accumulating with every drink we take. Even filtered and processed water.

“Foresight Future of the Sea” a report from the UK Government Office for Science said our oceans have seen “unprecedented change as a result of direct human activity and climate change.”

The report found that 70% of marine litter is non-degradable plastic which is projected to increase threefold between 2015 and 2025.

Even when it is recycled, plastic cannot be turned back into another plastic bottle. Plastic is too stable for that.  It is turned into pellets and used for other things like fiber fill and insulation. The problem is only about 28 percent of bottles are recycled.

An article in Forbes indicates that “globally humans buy a million plastic bottles per minute.” And that “over half a trillion plastic bottles will be sold in 2020.”

A report from the Ellen MacArthur foundation (downloadable PDF) estimates that by 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean, by weight, than fish.

Living inland, away from the coast, it is easy to think that the problem doesn’t apply to me. But I see tons of plastic floating down the river after every hard rain and collecting at every lock on the river, only to be flushed on downstream. Eventually, it will make it to the ocean. It takes 400 years for that plastic water bottle, or single-use straw, to degrade.

Protecting the environment and making sure birds have trees to roost in, we all have clean water to drink and good air to breathe drink isn’t hard to justify. The same should be true for everything that swims in the oceans.

We rely on the oceans for food, recreation and the very air we breathe. It is time for a new Earth Day call, like the one brought about by Carson, to reduce single-use plastics and keep them out of our oceans.

Filed Under: Diving

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • …
  • 34
  • Next Page »

Real Thugs: A Cult of Murder — Small groups of travelers have disappeared all over the mid-Atlantic without a trace. When bodies turn up with what appear to be ritual markings, FBI Agent AJ West is on the hunt for what might be a serial killer. Or something even more sinister. It’s a race against […]

View Book

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Substack
  • Threads
  • YouTube
Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 ·