A New Chapter: Why I Co-Founded Blue Rides

Earlier this year, I was injured on a liveaboard in Mexico. It wasn't the kind of injury that makes headlines — but it was the kind that makes you stop and ask hard questions about the life you've built.

For years, my body has been my business. Underwater photography asks a lot of you physically — holding your breath, hauling weights, controlling your buoyancy, wrangling gear, staying alert in conditions that don't always cooperate. I love every bit of it. But lying there afterward, I realized something I'd been avoiding: I needed a path forward that didn't live or die by my physical health.

That realization didn't arrive alone. A few months later, I learned that the lease on my studio and pool — the space that's hosted years of underwater workshops, portrait sessions, and some of the most meaningful moments of my career — wouldn't be renewed. October's Water Workshop will be the last one in that pool. It's the end of something I've poured myself into for a long time.

I could have treated that as just a loss. And to be completely transparent, I've grieved Water Bear very heavily these past few months. It's devastating to feel like I'm losing the business I've worked so hard to build, but I'm telling myself that it's not over but that it's a pivot.

Enter Blue Rides

I'm thrilled to share that I've stepped into a new role as co-founder of Blue Rides, a luxury dive liveaboard travel brokerage connecting divers with unforgettable trips around the world.

It's a natural next step, even if it didn't feel obvious at first. The thing I've always loved most about underwater photography was never really about the camera — it was about watching people discover something in themselves while they're discovering the water. The quiet confidence that shows up in someone's face after their first successful dive. The way people open up underwater in a way they rarely do on land. That's the part of this work I never want to lose, no matter what form my career takes.

Blue Rides lets me stay in that space — helping people find their way to the water — without asking my body to be the one doing the diving, the swimming, the holding-breath-for-just-one-more-shot. It's a way to keep building something meaningful in an industry I love, from a foundation that isn't dependent on my physical health holding up indefinitely.

What This Means for Water Bear Photography

To be clear: this isn't a goodbye to Water Bear Photography. This is an evolution. Water Bear Photography is still searching for a new home and in the meantime, I'll be working primarily out of our stunning Florida springs. The October Water Workshop is still happening, and I'm as committed to it as ever — it just carries a little extra weight this time around, being the end of an era.

What's changing is the shape of what comes next. I'm building toward a version of this business — and this life — that doesn't ask me to choose between doing the work I love and protecting the body that's made it possible. I will still keep hosting community days and doing everything I can to bring together water lovers of all kinds.

If you've ever dreamed of a liveaboard trip — the kind where you wake up already anchored at a dive site, coffee in hand, gear ready — I'd love for you to check out what we're building at Blue Rides. And if you've been waiting for a sign to book the last Water Workshop, this is it too.

Here's to new water, new chapters, and staying exactly where I belong — helping people find themselves, one water day at a time.

— Kimber