In his 14 years taking photographs for Powerboat, Tom Newby defined the art of high-performance boat photography.

Covering the 2001 APBA Offshore World Championships in Key West, Fla., photographer Tom Newby noticed a boat running on the edge of control. As he watched the boat fight for stability from the helicopter carrying him, he was certain that it would eventually cross over that edge.

"Stick with Ettore," Newby told the pilot.

A few moments later, Newby's hunch became all-too-real and the 39-foot Ettore V-bottom turned into a submarine. The result, at least for the photographer, was perhaps the most spectacular action sequence in offshore racing history.

Newby credited capturing the crash, which both the driver and throttleman survived, to luck, but the truth was a whole lot different. By the time he photographed the Ettore "stuff" sequence, Newby had been shooting offshore racing for eight years. His unmatched instinct and patience came from experience. He knew the sport—knew what looked right and what didn't. He knew where to be.

Knowing where to be and how things should look defined Newby as a boat photographer. Those attributes blended perfectly with his formidable work ethic, refusal-to-compromise quality in any form, and of course, his attention—perhaps obsession—to detail.

For Newby, shooting boats running in hard midday light was out, unless there had been an earthquake in the early morning and a hurricane was going to spoil the late-afternoon shoot. He could spot a footprint on a swim platform from 200 feet above and 300 feet behind the offending boat.

Even on 40-degree mornings, windbreakers and sweatshirts were a no-no, punishable by 30 minutes of "What'd you do that for?" at breakfast after the shoot. Because that's not how performance boating was supposed to look. It was supposed to look fun, warm, appealing. Maybe even a little sexy. But never cold.

Newby knew that, and even though Powerboat's drivers, co-pilots and models might curse him through chattering teeth on frigid mornings, they knew he was right. He held them to the same high standard to which he held himself.

So there was always time for "one more run," and there was always another memory card to fill for his digital camera. Back in the days when he shot slides, there was always another roll of film. Newby knew that of the 300 or so images of each boat he captured during Powerboat's Performance Trials and Roundups, only one could be the best. That's the one he cared about and getting it took hard work.

Tom Newby never resorted to photographic clichés or gimmicks when it came to running shots. He rarely panned and he didn't use deliberately low shutter speeds. Clean defined his style. Crisp was his focus. If a model's hair was trailing in the breeze, he wanted readers to be able to see every strand.

The same applied to Newby's portraiture for personality profiles. He always posed his subjects, from Gary Stray of Super Cat Rigging to Debbie Christensen of Advantage Boats, but he created settings in which he knew they'd be comfortable. When Stray donned a lab coat and grabbed a wrench in a "mad scientist" pose, the image Newby captured exposed the normally understated Stray's inner 14-year-old. When Christensen stood in front of the Harley she rides, the photo revealed the soul of a remarkable woman reborn through loss.

Though Newby was a born perfectionist, his drive to make things right on every shoot was honed as an assistant to an automotive photographer. "Car shooters" and the art directors they answer to are notoriously picky. So Newby spent many days scouting "perfect" locations on dry lake beds in the deserts of California and Arizona.

Years later, a colleague was driving through the desert with him on their way to the Colorado River in Parker, Ariz., and caught him staring into oblivion. Asked what he was looking at, Newby responded, "I think I did a shoot out there once."

What began on those sun-bleached lake beds became a standard-setting career in powerboat photography. That career carried Newby to coastal Peru and the Persian Gulf, to the island nation of Malta and the waters of Manhattan and the untamed Amazon. Along the way, he plied his art on more epic waterways than most people could name—much less visit and capture—in a lifetime.