Jonathan David Saenz

Jon was the diver and photographer behind Partial Pressure Diving. He spent his weekends in the cold green water of Puget Sound and Lake Washington and surfaced with photographs most of us would never otherwise see: wolf eels, giant Pacific octopuses, forests of plumose anemones on the wrecks. His own words for it were simpler - using photography to increase awareness of the state of wildlife in our waters.

The diving came later in a life that was already full. Jon grew up in Alamogordo and studied computer science at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, where he was an avid gamer and one of the original and notable members of the Seek Geek gaming club, along with Eric Zeitler. He built a career in tech in Seattle after he and his partner Rachel moved to the Pacific Northwest in 2013 for the greenery and the closeness of real wilderness. He was an expert swimmer and a rugby player, a saxophonist, a chef, a scotch aficionado, and a prankster with an infectious laugh. He and Rachel explored the nature preserves around Seattle with their three border collies: Ceana, Bjorn, and Gunnar.

Diving took him around the world: the Galapagos twice, Hawaii, Mexico, Costa Rica, and up and down the Northwest coast of the U.S. and Canada. But the cold water of Puget Sound was home.

His work

• @partialpressurediving - his underwater photography
• 700 Feet Down (2021) - a documentary about diving the wreckage of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which Jon took part in
• Award winner, 2022 MaST Center Underwater Photography Challenge, Redondo Beach, WA

Remembering

To know Jon was a privilege. He lived his life well and with purpose - a truly unique and wonderful person. His presence and affinity for life followed Oscar Wilde's dictum, "To live is the rarest thing in the world, most people exist, that is all." His infectious laugh and kind heart will be missed by all who knew him.

— from his obituary

• Obituary - The Seattle Times
• The Scuba News on the Seattle diving community's loss

In his memory

Donations in Jon's memory may be made to:

• MaST Center Aquarium - Highline College, P.O. Box 98000, Des Moines, WA 98198-9800
• Seattle Pride - 600 1st Ave, Suite 300-D, Seattle, WA 98104

The mark

The logo at the top of this page is Jon's own: the Partial Pressure Diving mark, a diver's mask drawn as a Polynesian tattoo. His website is gone, but the original artwork survived in the Wayback Machine and has been traced back to vector. If you knew Jon and want it, take it.

• Diver mark, vector (SVG): red, black, white
• Diver mark, PNG: original black as archived (1738x1787), red, white
• Partial Pressure Diving wordmark (PNG, 1961x1100)