Stand Alone – BEAUTY AND PERFECTION IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY

BEAUTY AND PERFECTION IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY

The history of the Grey Nurse Shark, and their interactions with humanity, is unsettling. It all started when a man was bitten by a shark on the west coast of Australia in 1963.

The bite occurred during a spear fishing tournament. Bite marks suggests it was a great white. The man’s wound was very severe, but he did survive. Carrying dead fish around with you in the ocean has inherent risks.

I need to quickly step back and tell you a little about the grey nurse shark. They are quite large with adults reaching 3.5m (11ft). Their body is sleek with a beautiful long tail, which they use like a whip to stun and capture small prey. Their needle like teeth, which spill out of their lower jaw, are used to capture, and hold their prey such as squid, rays, and fish. They are not equipped with the right teeth or jaw to hunt anything bigger than small fish and are not aggressive towards humans.

Grey nurse sharks hunt at night, and during the day they congregate in large groups, normally around rocky outcrops just offshore. During this time, they “sleep,” basically they enter a relaxed and passive state. I have dived hundreds of times with them, and they have never made any aggressive actions to me or my fellow divers.

The man that was bitten was angry and wanted revenge. Once he had healed, he formed a group to hunt sharks… any sharks. They equipped themselves with “power heads,” explosive tipped spears. Their first stop, the grey nurse shark congregation sites. The decimation was immense and unrelenting. When they ran out of spears, they used knives, yes, they swam down and stabbed the sharks to death. They yelled “even one shark is too many,” “a good shark is a dead shark,” and “the hunter becomes the hunted, revenge is sweet.”

The men were heralded as heroes, they were branded as “Shark Fighters,” won awards, were featured in books and magazines, and even a movie was made. Meanwhile, the population of sharks collapsed, pushing the Australian grey nurse sharks to the brink of extinction.

The popularity of the “Shark Fighters” attracted the attention of the global media. Everyone wanted footage of the man-eating monsters. “Sharks sell very well,” and “we want to put sharks into everyone’s living room”. A new underwater videography industry was created which, in an almost perverse twist of fate, lead to the invention/perfection of the shark cage. Divers could now enter the water and observe sharks without fear.

All the additional time in the water gave the “Shark Fighters,” a better understanding of the shark’s behaviour and they soon realised they were not man eaters. The new revenue streams from underwater videography, and later tourism, tied their fates to that of the sharks. The “Shark Fighters” stopped killing and slowly turn to conservation. Fast forward to the present day. The man who was bitten at the very start of this story, was Rodney Fox. He is now regarded as a prominent shark conservationist. He sits alongside Ron and Valerie Taylor, two other “Shark Fighters” and their research has now helped people understand the importance and fragility of the shark’s population in Australia.

The grey nurse shark was listed as endangered. This status opened up new regulatory and funding options to help protect the species. Extensive monitoring and tracking of the grey nurse have allowed scientist to identify and protect congregation and breeding sites whilst tracking population numbers.

The recovery is slow, but it is increasing! Even today only 1300 grey nurse sharks roam up and down the east coast of Australia. However, with continued efforts it is believed the species will survive. There is hope!

I will let you draw your own conclusion as to the moral of this story. I hope that it includes the concepts of ignorance and education.

Edition 1 / 1

10437 x 8032

Price – 1.69 eth

BEHIND THE IMAGE

This was one of the most challenging images I have ever captured. It took over 50 dives to perfect and is a good example of why you should never use the word lucky when talking about wildlife photography.

There where a lot of challenges to address in addition to no being about to tell the model where to stand, how to pose or that they should not eat you. Many of these where out of my hands. Others could be addressed but required me to advance myself as a diver and an underwater photographer. None required luck. They required persistence, patience and proficiency.

A timer is started the moment a diver descends below the waves. You carry a finite amount of air so you cannot spend hours waiting for a model to behave or for favourable lighting conditions. Underwater photographers are required to be patient just like terrestrial wildlife photographers but this patience is required on the surface. Waiting for favourable sea conditions, the right weather, the correct time of year when sharks are likely to be prevalent just to name a few.

The crevasse, where this photo was taken, is particularly susceptible to sea conditions and is too dangerous to enter when swells are large or coming from the wrong direction. The weather could be perfect, the visibility amazing, sharks prevalent in the area but the swell a little to large so going to this dive site would be fruitless. Patience is required.

Sometimes when you arrive at the dive site, despite all of your patience, conditions may not be favourable. The swell may be higher than forecast, clouds may obscure the sun, underwater visibility in the crevasse may be poor, the models (sharks) may not be in the right location or may not behave. Persistence is one of the most important factors in underwater photography. You need to keep going back until you get the shot.

Proficiency as a diver is critical. For this shot I had to be close to the bottom and shooting directly up. The swell moves you around a lot so laying on the bottom is out of the question. In fact if you touch the bottom whilst upside down you tank can dig into the sand and you end up cartwheeling and kicking any near by sharks. This is not a good idea! If you are to buoyant you rise up and risk hitting/hugging the sharks as they swim over you. Also ill advised. To add to the difficulty, bubbles expelled from your regulator spook the sharks so when they get close you need to hold your breath (don’t tell my old dive instructor I ever did this). Buoyancy control was absolutely critical and took a lot of practice to perfect.

I realised early in my attempts to capture this image that other divers present in crevasse spooked the sharks. I thus undertook specialty training to allow me to dive alone. Having a partner provides complete redundancy, including an extra brain and 2 extra legs. Diving alone increases risks substantially if not done correctly. You must be a proficient and well prepared to dive alone.

Proficiency counts most when everything aligns. When sun is shining into the crevasse, the visibility is perfect, and you have peaked the interest of a large shark which is coming to investigate (i.e. pose for you). When your floating upside down, alone in the crevasse holding your breath as the 3m long grey nurse shark swims just two meters above you and you pull the shutter release. That’s when proficiency most matters. You don’t want to miss that shot! When this image showed up on the screen of my camera, looking exactly as I had envisaged years before, I was estatic! All of my work had finally paid off.

I hope you enjoy the culmination of all my efforts. Likewise, when viewing other unique and special wildlife images, I hope you don’t use the work luck and realise they are the collimations of a huge amount of effort centred around patience, persistence and proficiency.