About Tom Bernens
Tom Bernens is a Tucson-based engineer, diver and photographer. He has been shooting since 2006 and diving since 2011, and by 2014 the two hobbies had merged into one obsession.
This site is his personal homepage and the home of Bukowskaii Creations, which handles his print sales and app development. Prints of his photos are in the Store, made and shipped by Fine Art America.
Where “Bukowskaii” comes from
The name is a nod to the author and poet Charles Bukowski. Tom read Ham on Rye in high school and started using the name online soon after. It’s still one of his favorite books. The novel is Bukowski’s semi-autobiographical story of Henry Chinaski growing up in Los Angeles during the Great Depression. Henry is an outsider at home and at school, and over the book he finds his way out through reading and writing. Under the coming-of-age story is a running critique of how shallow society’s values are: money, status, appearances and fitting in.
The Bukowski line he tries to live by is “Don’t try.” It sounds like it’s telling you to give up, but it means the opposite. In a 1963 letter, Bukowski wrote that good work doesn’t come from forcing it or from chasing money, fame or approval. It comes from doing the thing you can’t help doing, and waiting for it to come to you. The two words are on his headstone.
Diving
Tom’s father started scuba diving in the 1970s, so Tom grew up hearing his dive stories and looking at the photos he took. Tom got certified in college, taking scuba for his PE credit, and has been diving ever since. He holds Open Water from SSI, Advanced Open Water from NAUI and Nitrox from PADI, and he’s working on his Rescue Diver certification.
He has taken photos and videos underwater in Cozumel, Hawaii, Thailand, Socorro, the Florida Keys, Cabo and Australia. His setup is an Olympus TG-6 in a PT-059 housing with twin YS-01 strobes and a wide-angle wet lens. Macro is his favorite kind of photography, especially nudibranchs, but he also loves seeing big pelagics like sharks, whales and rays.
Cozumel is the trip he goes back to most. The reefs along the south and west side of the island are a protected national marine park. The current carries you along walls and coral towers in easy drift dives, and visibility is often over 100 feet. Palancar Caves, with its swim-throughs between tall coral formations, is one of his favorite dive sites, along with the deeper Punta Sur sites at the south end of the island.
The trip he’ll always remember is Socorro, in the Revillagigedo Islands, where he saw manta rays on nearly every dive. Mantas are his favorite animal in the sea.
On April 19, 2026 he got to dive with a whale shark at the Georgia Aquarium, but he’d still like to dive with wild whale sharks somewhere it’s done ethically. Also on the list are the Sea of Cortez during the mobula ray migration and a liveaboard to the Galápagos.
Above the surface
Out of the water he shoots nature and landscapes, hiking the desert around Tucson and further afield in places like Alaska and California. He still leans toward macro, but he also enjoys architecture and candid street photography. For that he uses a Canon 80D with either a 60mm f/2.8 macro or a 24-105mm f/4.
Most of his trips revolve around diving and photography, but he never shies away from an adventure. He has also traveled to Germany, Spain, Greece, India, Taiwan, China, Japan and more.
Engineering
Tom is a computer and software engineer. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from Texas Tech University in 2013. He’s now working on a Master of Science in Computer Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, specializing in data science and artificial intelligence, and expects to graduate in December 2026.
He has worked at Texas Instruments since 2012 as a data analyst and software developer. He’s a Senior Member, Technical Staff, and currently a Technologist for Linear Amplifiers, focusing on automation and advanced analytics, including applications that use machine learning and AI.
Software development
Outside of work Tom writes software for fun, and a lot of it is public on GitHub. He has contributed features and fixes to open source projects like django-helpdesk, MapJS and ReadMeABook. He also maintains his own projects, including DiscordWatchParty, a Discord bot for hosting watch parties from Plex, Emby or Jellyfin servers. His Wear OS watch faces are on the Apps page and on Google Play.
Pokémon Go
Tom has played Pokémon Go since release day, July 6, 2016. He hit level 40 in July 2017, level 50 in February 2021 and level 80 on June 5, 2026 at GO Fest Chicago, at the same moment as his fiancée Juliet. The game is a big part of how he travels, and a lot of trips have a Pokémon Go side quest built in. He has been to GO Fest in Madrid, Japan, New York, Seattle and Chicago, and to GO Tour in Los Angeles. He also collects and plays the Pokémon Trading Card Game.
He was part of the TL40 Data Team, a group of players who collected stats from level 40 trainers around the world. The team turned that data into city and country leaderboards, trend reports and a percentile email for each trainer, and Tom helped build and maintain the team’s website.
Life outside the water
Tom grew up in Weatherford, TX, and lived in Lubbock for college from 2009 to 2013. After graduating he moved to Dallas to work for TI, then moved to Tucson in 2015 and has lived there since. He met his fiancée Juliet in Tucson in 2018 playing Pokémon Go. She got dive certified in 2019, and they got engaged in Cozumel in 2022.
At home there are three dogs: Peanut, a Basset Hound/Chow mix, Reggie, a bully super mutt, and Kiwi, a Corgi. Tom is a longtime gamer. League of Legends is probably the game he’s played the most, and he also played Destiny 2 for years and World of Warcraft in college. His gaming videos are on YouTube.
