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Suncoast Pasco News
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In the eye of the hurricane
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Published: September 10, 2008
Get him talking about his photography career, and Burton McNeely doesn't slow down.
Maybe that's because there's so much to say about a 45-year span crammed with chasing down hurricanes and photographing underwater scenes for top magazines, including Life, National Geographic and Sports Illustrated.
The 80-year-old McNeely now has an exhibit at Pasco-Hernando Community College in New Port Richey of his outdoor and underwater photography that will run until Oct. 4.
Many of the shots - especially those of hurricanes - are timeless, McNeely said.
He still sells stock photos of hurricanes taken 40 years ago. "Hurricanes still look the same today as in the 60s," he said.
He remembers an eight-hour flight with a hurricane hunter in an attempt to photograph Washington, D. C., through the eye of a hurricane for Life.
That was in the time before weather satellites. In those days, wind speed was estimated by determining the pattern of the wind on the water.
He was one of three photographers the magazine sent up in three different planes on shifts in order to capture the moment.
They never did get the nation's capital as seen through the hurricane's eye, McNeely, recalled, but he still got many good images of hurricanes from the plane.
McNeely was then part of Life's Miami bureau that covered the southern U.S., South America and the Caribbean.
In 2004, McNeely had his own personal experience with hurricanes when hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne that swept through Florida that year and destroyed his photography laboratory in Land O' Lakes, where he now lives.
In the 1950s, McNeely became interested in underwater photography.
He created his own "housing," or shelter to keep the camera dry, that is on display at the exhibit. The Plexiglas structure can still be used today, he said.
One of his photos at the exhibit is of a woman swimming with dolphins, a photo taken in 1993 in the Bahamas. "That was one of the first times people found you could swim with wild dolphins," he said.
McNeely still keeps his hand in the photography business by doing digital stock photography.
He has little nostalgia for the old film cameras. "You can do things with digital you can never do with film," he said.
The PHCC Gallery is in the Alric Pottberg Library in the PHCC campus, 10230 Ridge Road, New Port Richey.
Hours are from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
Cheryl Bentley can be reached at 727-815-1069 or cbentley@suncoastnews.com.
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