my Okoboji images

Lloyd B. Cunningham has logged more than 320 dives in West Lake Okoboji exploring the bottom, making photographs and recovering antique bottles, anchors, and ice harvesting tools. In 1996 he discovered a sailboat lost on the bottom off Sunset Beach. Cunningham has been making underwater photographs in Okoboji for more than 10 years. He begins early in the spring diving beneath the receding ice cover. The still, cold water – the temperature then is typically 40 degrees – provides the best possible visibility, sometimes more than 30 feet. Visibility diminishes as the temperature rises and spring winds and boat motors churn the water. The photo season rarely lasts till June though some years the lake clears again in early October. Cunningham has dived and photographed the Florida Keys, the Caribbean and Baja, but finds the challenge of the dark freshwater of West Lake Okoboji the most fun. When not diving, Cunningham, a former runner, bikes, roller-blades, flies kites, plays golf and plans to learn to fish. A photojournalist for 33 years, he grew up in Winterset, Iowa, attended the University of Iowa. He is senior photographer at the Argus Leader, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and teaches photojournalism at the University of South Dakota. Cunningham shoots editorial and commercial photographs on a freelance basis.