Eric Cheng is an award-winning photographer and publisher, and is the Director of Aerial Imaging and General Manager of the San Francisco office at DJI, the makers of the popular Phantom aerial-imaging quadcopter. Throughout his career, Cheng has straddled passions for photography, entrepreneurship, technology and communication. He publishes Wetpixel.com, the leading underwater-photography community on the web, and writes about his aerial-imaging pursuits at skypixel.org His work as a photographer has been featured at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum and in many media outlets including Wired, Outdoor Photographer, Popular Photography, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Make, ABC, Good Morning America, CBS, CNN and others. His video work has been shown on the Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, and on virtually every news network around the world.
Caught between technical and creative pursuits, Eric holds bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science from Stanford University, where he also studied classical cello performance. He leads regular photography expeditions and workshops around the world, and has given seminars and lectures internationally at events including TEDx, the Churchill Club, Photoshelter Luminance, Photographers@Google, CES, SXSW, AsiaD, Creative Mornings, DEMA, and others.
Through Wetpixel Expeditions, Eric leads regular photography expeditions and workshops around the world. Eric is also involved in ocean conservation, and has served on the Board of Directors of Shark Savers and the Board of Advisors of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. He was also head photographer for Operation Musashi, Sea Shepherd's 2008-2009 anti-whaling campaign in Antarctica, which was featured in season 2 of the hit TV show, Whale Wars.
Eric lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Pam.
More: Eric talks about his philosophies of life over at a Huffington Post interview entitled, An Explorer's Lessons On Happiness, Photography, And Greeting Whales.
