Philadelphia Inquirer photo editor Alen Malott died at his Lansdowne home on Christmas Day, leaving behind a 30-year legacy of outstanding work, writes Sam Wood for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Malott, 69, photographed dozens of shipwrecks off the coasts of New Jersey and North Carolina and in the Caribbean. The work was part of his passion for scuba diving.

He trained hundreds of students to become certified divers.

Mr. Malott always traveled with a camera and used it with rare skill.

“Between photography and diving, that was his life,” Fisher said. “He traveled all over, including to the islands where he did Blackbeard’s Cruises, where you dive up to five times a day. Alen was always the man behind the camera. Other people were his subjects. You have very few pictures of Alen.”

His eye in the Inquirer newsroom was highly valued by his bosses, rating him the best photo editor they’ve known, part of a generation that understood the art of photography and telling a story through images.

In 1986, Mr. Malott was hired at The Inquirer in 1986, initially managing a group of 30 photographers In the suburban bureaus.

Read more about Mr. Malott and his photojournalism career here.

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