INTERVIEW WITH SHARKS 4 KIDS

While in the Bahamas last month photographing great hammerhead sharks, I dived with friends and filmmakers Jillian Morris and Duncan Brake. Jillian runs "Sharks 4 Kids", a great educational site helping to share the magic of sharks with children all over the world. Jillian and I discussed our shared fascination with sharks. Check it out!

And check back with us shortly for a new batch of super up-close and personal pictures of Sphyrna mokarran. I am preparing the images now and will soon post them on our web site.

INDONESIA PHOTO ON FRONT COVER OF TAUCHEN MAGAZINE

 

As I've said many times, the seas are filled with wonderful creatures. Including real live mermaids! Here is my favorite, Melissa, swimming along a reef ablaze in soft corals, deep in the heart of Indonesia. This photo was just published in Europe's leading scuba diving magazine, Tauchen. We've worked with them countless times over the last 20 years. I'm sure that Melissa has graced the cover at least 20 times! Indonesia boasts many of the world's richest reefs, and we thoroughly enjoy exploring this hotspot of marine biodiversity. There are more species of coral, fishes, and invertebrates in Indonesia than any other place on earth. We have loads and loads of underwater pictures from Indonesia, hundreds of which can be seen on our web site. 

We will be returning to scuba dive Indonesia in 2015 in the company of a great group of friends from around the world. There are two spaces left on the boat, so if anyone out there is interested in coming aboard to dive into waters dubbed "The Cauldron of Creation", please contact us. Future group diving safaris are likely to include exotic places such as Fiji, the Maldives, Tonga (for humpback whales), Bahamas, and more. Come join us beneath the waves!

GREAT HAMMERHEAD SHARKS

I recently returned from a shoot with Sphyrna mokarran, the Great Hammerhead Shark. To see a gallery of the resulting pictures, please click here.

This is one impressive fish, a solitary giant with a tall curved dorsal fin much like an orca whale. It’s the largest of the eight or nine species of hammerheads (family Sphyrnidae), which are immediately recognizable because of their flattened T-shaped heads. Some scientists surmise it acts like an airplane wing, providing lift during swimming. Certainly this "cephalofoil" enhances mobility, allowing the shark to make extremely tight turns, and the position of the eyes at the outer edges of the "hammer" likely improves stereoscopic vision.
   
Though usually not aggressive, the great hammerhead’s size, averaging 10-12 feet (females are larger than males), demands respect and caution from divers and swimmers. Up until recently encounters were hit and miss, but recent expeditions in the Bahamas Islands of the western Atlantic Ocean have proved reliable for winter-time sightings.
   
The Great Hammerhead feeds on a wide variety of mid-water and bottom fishes, including other elasmobranchs. Most noteworthy is its preference for skates and rays. At night it hunts stingrays, eagle rays, guitarfish and the like, using an amazing technique. Using the side of its hammer, it pins a ray to the bottom, then deftly rotates its head to the side and bites off a large chunk of the prey’s wing. The pin-spin-and-bite attack continues until the skate or ray is consumed.

These dramatic new images of great hammerhead sharks add to our legacy pictures of this enigmatic species. I will be returning to Bimini in the Bahamas in a couple of weeks to spend more time photographing this remarkable shark.

ROCA PARTIDA ONLINE PHOTO GALLERY

RM40291-D. Underwater stock photograph of Yellowfin Tuna (Thunnus albacores), large (1.2 meter long) males with spawning coloration and banded pattern chasing females just before they releases eggs for them to fertilize. Socorro Islands, Baja, Mexico, Pacific Ocean.

Roca Partida is, in my opinion, one of the best scuba diving sites in the world. Far offshore Mexico's Baja Peninsula, this remote rock is a magnet for big marine life- whales, dolphins, big fish like tuna, manta rays, sharks, sharks, and more sharks.  It is a challenging dive, with potentially strong currents, open ocean swell, and deep. A selection of our underwater images from Roca was recently published on-line at FishTrack:

http://www.fishtrack.com/features/roca-partida-revealed_105633

Wait for 15 seconds, then move through the photos and read our captions to experience this unique place beneath the waves.

MARINE MEGAFAUNA FROM 2013

professional stock pictures of orca whales, schooling silky sharks, mola molas, schools of fish, Florida manatees, whale sharks and dolphins

Happy New Year! 2014 is here. A time to look forward, and think back. As we enter our third decade of exploration beneath the waves in order to bring you the finest in marine photography, we'd like to thank you for your past business... and give you an update as to what we've doing lately, and where we're headed next. 

After early trips in 2013 for sailfish in Mexico, coral reefs in Palau, and shipwrecks in Truk Lagoon, I revisited some of my old haunts to make pictures of marine megafauna.

In the Galapagos Islands I lucked out with the largest bony fish in the sea, the weird Mola Mola, or Ocean Sunfish. Of course my lens was also pointed at sea turtles, rivers of fish streaming past me, and schools of hammerhead sharks. Many trips over many years have helped us build what is certainly one of the world's strongest single photographer portfolios of marine images from this famous archipelago. To see a gallery with some of our new Galapagos pictures, please click here. To browse hundreds more from past expeditions, please click here.

Everybody needs a favorite animal (or two). Mine would have to be the killer whale ( and octopus). I have spent so many weeks with killer whales over the last 25 years that I believe I've developed the special skills (and patience) to create dramatic photography which jumps out from the crowd. On my most recent orca expedition I was rewarded with some amazing action, and subtle beauty, in the wee hours at dawn and dusk. Follow this link to click through new selects. And this link to explore the full library.

Another subject for which we're known as experts in the underwater field is Mexico. Even after more than 50 expeditions, it remains a very productive (and fun) place to encounter Senor Bigs. In June I spent two weeks 250 miles offshore Baja in the Socorro Islands. Sharks, tuna, and mantas were on the shot list, and I scored with all three. Especially noteworthy are pictures of dolphins interacting with a whale shark, huge yellowfin tuna rocketing through the current, and a pack of silky sharks annihilating a baitball. Being in the middle of some 150 to 200 excited sharks made for a very interesting few minutes before a little voice in my head told me to get out of the water. We've created a gallery showcasing new images here. And we're sure you'll like to see more Mexico images here, including sailfish, sea lions, and great white sharks.

We're now shooting (and licensing!) underwater HD video clips. To view a few from Socorro, left click the following:  video clip 1  video clip 2  video clip 3

I closed out the year with a short trip to Florida to photograph manatees. These "smiling potatoes with flippers" are super gentle and sometimes quite curious, even friendly, making for a brilliant, easy snorkeling encounter with megafauna. We've added the new pictures to our stock collection and invite you to take a look on our web site.

What does the new year holds for us? How about great hammerhead sharks in the Bahamas. More manatees in Florida. Tiger and lemon sharks. Spotted Dolphins. Unique southern hemisphere temperate species in the kelp forests and sponge gardens of Tasmania. Minke whales in Australia. Whale sharks in Mexico. Giant Bluefin Tuna. And no doubt additional adventures yet to bubble up to the surface.

2014 is going to be a great year. Please join us on our journey into Ocean, and in our commitment to protect the marine habitat. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

REVISITING FLORIDA'S MANATEE

RQ0672-D. underwater photo of friendly Florida Manatee in Crystal River, Florida

The seas are filled with wonderful creatures. So are the world's freshwater systems. Few animals move back and forth between salty and sweet. Manatees, of the Sirenian tribe, do so with grace and style. I've made many photo trips to west central Florida's Crystal River area to photograph our country's only sirenian, Trichechus manatus latirostris, the endearing, and endangered, manatee. Technically these individuals are a subspecies of the West Indian manatee. They are gray, fat, and just about the coolest marine mammal the non-hardcore diver or snorkeler is likely to meet up-close and personal. In winter months, hundreds of these gentle creatures move from the coastal seagrass beds in the Gulf of Mexico, into Crystal River and its tributaries to rest and feed in the warmer springfed freshwater. On a cold morning, it's not uncommon to find ten or twenty huddled together in the shallow water, sleeping and socializing, staying warm and occasionally swimming right up to you to say hello.

Our manatee photos have been published all over the world, illustrating magazine articles, appearing in advertisements, gracing billboards and book covers, calendars and cards. To see more underwater pictures of Florida Manatees, please visit our web site. We will be happy to help with licensing requests. Select prints are also available for purchase.

LEAPING SALMON VIDEO CLIP

Coho and Chinook Salmon jumping out of river to clear small waterfall, on way upriver to spawn, Washington, USA from Brandon Cole MARINE PHOTOGRAPHY on Vimeo.

A little while back Melissa and I spent a couple days watching coho and chinook salmon fighting their way upriver, on their mission to spawn (and die). The determination of these fish to surmount any obstacle, their dedication and persistence to see their life's journey to the bitter end against all the odds, is one of nature's most inspirational stories. Unfortunately the water clarity was very poor due to heavy rains, so this shoot only yielded topside pictures and video (see clip above). No underwater pictures this time.

We have, of course, photographed this icon of the Pacific Northwest many times over the years, and have been fortunate enough to create many underwater salmon photos, some of which you can see on our web site using the following link:

http://tinyurl.com/q6752x6