Bob Young, an adventurous photographer who documented Hawai'i over a half century and had six Pulitzer Prize nominations, has died. He was 76.

Some of his best work was photographing longboard riders during "the Golden Age of Surfing," said his sister, Jackie Young.

Young was one of the first to use a waterproof camera while swimming close to surfers in dangerous waves, giving him an intimate vantage point. Family and colleagues knew him for a fearless commitment to doing whatever it took to "get the picture," Jackie Young said.

Ocean photography was his lifelong avocation, but he worked as a news photographer for The Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin from the 1950s through the 1980s.

He died Jan. 9 of complications following a stroke.

Young was born in Wahiawa and attended Punahou School. He spent summers at the family beach house on the North Shore, where he gained familiarity with local waters while skin diving.

In the late 1940s, when scuba gear was not readily available, he created his own underwater breathing device by strapping a compressed air tank to his back so he could explore North Shore reefs. When he was 13, his parents gave him his first camera, for which he devised a Plexiglas housing to take underwater photos, his sister said.

He was the newspaper and yearbook photographer at Punahou and then attended Yale University, where he was photo editor of the Yale Daily News under William F. Buckley, who was then the paper's editor.

As a freelance photographer in the early 1960s, he documented tense events surrounding construction of the Berlin Wall, from inside East Berlin, and covered President Kennedy's famous speech in which he declared: "Ich bin ein Berliner."

For the Honolulu newspapers, he photographed many historic and interesting events: statehood; presidential visits; celebrities, including Elvis Presley and the Monkees. One of his first assignments at The Advertiser — using a borrowed camera — was a portrait of Duke Kahanamoku.

He won a first prize from the Honolulu Press Club one year for a photo that showed children held by tethers at a care home, said his daughter, Tara Young. His photos and the accompanying stories exposed serious abuses of disabled children and led to a state investigation.

As a surf photographer, he fortuitously captured Eddie Aikau's very first wave at Sunset Beach. He caught the joy of surfing on the faces and body moves of many who became legends: Aikau, Rell Sunn, Fred Hemmings, Jose Angel, Jock Sutherland, Felipe Pomar, Greg Noll and others.

In addition to his sister, Young is survived by a son, Kevin, and a daughter, Tara. Services were private.