Over the course of the next three years, she became a YMCA Scuba Instructor, a PADI Diving Instructor and a NAUI Diving Instructor. For seven years she has taught diving at the Main Line YMCA.
Today, she is a freelance professional underwater photographer and diving journalist based in Nevada. She is one of the few full-time underwater photographers in the world.
Murphy began underwater photography in 1970 and has been actively teaching the skill since 1975. In 1974, she served as assistant dive coordinator and safety diver for the feature film production of a Cornell Wilde film, Shark's Treasure. She moved to the island of Bonaire in 1975 to become the first woman scuba diving instructor for Captain Don's Aquaventure. She was also an underwater photography instructor, a dive guide and photo technician. In 1976, she became Hollywood's first underwater script supervisor when she spent five months working on Columbia Pictures' underwater film, The Deep. Her work on this film took her to the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda and Marion Reef in Australia's Coral Sea. She was also the script supervisor for an episode of Man From Atlantis (1977), and appeared in an episode of the TV series Switch as an underwater stuntwoman, which included a buddy-breathing sequence with Robert Wagner. Additionally, she has served behind the scenes as Skin Diver's still photographer on two shark diving specials for CBS Sports. Her work has led her to become a recognised member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG).
In 1989, Murphy received an award from the Cayman Island Watersports Operators Association in recognition for naming Stingray City and publishing the first feature article in Skin Diver Magazine on this amazing undersea phenomenon.
For over 35 years, she has shared her remarkable photography skills and writing abilities with the world through her hundreds of magazine articles and books. She can credit over 200 magazine cover shots and has written hundreds of published articles. Throughout her years in the diving industry, she has certainly proved she has a rare eye for sharing the feeling of being underwater.