David Nahan is the editor and publisher of the Ocean City Sentinel and publisher of the Cape May Star and Wave and The Sentinel of Somers Point, Linwood and Northfield. He is the son of artists Irvin Nahan and Pauline Melcher Nahan of Nannygoat Hill, Hereford, Pa. His younger sister, Jennifer Nahan-Gidley, is an artist and art teacher in Palm, Pa. His older brother, Jesse, is a computer consultant in Cambridge, Mass. Nahan, his wife Mahara, and their three children, Keaton, Kelsey and Ian, have lived in Lower Township since 1997.

  In his 25th year as a journalist, David Nahan was an editor, photographer, city hall reporter and publisher. He worked at daily newspapers in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts before moving to South Jersey in 1997 when he became publisher and part-owner (with George Sample III) of the Ocean City Sentinel and Star and Wave.

  He started his career at The Tribune in Hornell, N.Y., in the early 1980s. There he learned darkroom techniques and spent 15 years working almost exclusively in black and white. He switched primarily to color film in the late 1990s and in 2000 went mostly digital, first with a Nikon D1 camera and later with a Nikon D2H. He has a degree in sociology from Alfred University.

  Unlike traditional publishers, Nahan takes an active role in the editorial content of the newspapers. "I got into the newspaper business to be a journalist, but as I made my way up the corporate ladder to become publisher of a daily newspaper, it ended up taking me away from day-to-day journalism," he said. "When the chance came to move here and buy into these newspapers it was also the chance to get back into the field."

  This exhibit at the Ocean City Fine Arts League is titled, "Sea Creatures and Other Oddities." Most of the work is from the past two years. "One of the best parts of summer for me is covering the lifeguard races. With the warm, early-evening light, the intense expressions of the men and women competing and the ocean waves as a backdrop, it makes for wonderful compositions. "I also love photographing the shore in the winter and during storms, when the cold, rain, wind and snow chase most people away. That's when I like to put on shorts, hiking boots and a jacket and wander around the beach."

  Nahan won three photography awards in the 2006 statewide New Jersey Press Association Better Newspaper Contest. Those awards were announced at the end of February.

  He won a first-place award for a spot news photo of lifeguards rescuing a fellow guard after an accident in a summer competition. Nahan received a second-place award for an entry in the photo illustration category. It was a photo of the recreation of a 1950s style postcard of sun-worshippers. Nahan also received a third-place award in the sports feature category.

  Nahan has received 15 other state press association awards for photography, editorial comment, and the design and content of his sports sections and editorial pages at the Ocean City Sentinel. Over his career, he has received numerous other newspaper awards, mostly for editing, editorials and column writing.