Flat, But Fascinating: Flatfishes Examined
My buddy Pete and I were hustling along, trying to get across the “barren” sand flat so we could explore the kelp forest. We…
Rays: Beauty, Grace and Power Combined
Some bury themselves so well in sand bottoms that all you see is a faint outline of their bodies. Others rest out in the…
Star-Struck: Encounters With Neptune’s Superstars
I was 60 feet (18 m) deep in water off San Diego’s famed La Jolla district composing a photograph of a little-finger-long Spanish shawl…
Barracudas: Monsters of Sea Lore, But Not In Real Life
It was just after midnight on a moonless night when we slipped into the watery blackness in hopes of filming a great barracuda, the…
Pinnipeds, Unplugged: Seals, Sea Lions and the Walrus
Long before we cleared the point, we could hear the cacophony of incessant barking, meaning there was no doubt that we were going to…
The Funny-Looking Bottom Dwellers: Not-Made-For-TV Sharks
Hear the word “shark” and, if you are like most people, you probably think of hair-raising scenes filled with snapping jaws and mouths full…
Form and Function: Sea Creature Shapes Examined
My camera was set up with a relatively wide-angle lens but the sea lion was moving so fast and so unpredictably that I was…
Complex Crustaceans: The Lobsters
When I was a kid, starting every year somewhere around the beginning of April, I knew exactly how many days were left in the…
An Eight-armed Wonder: The Octopus
Completely motionless, the killer waited in the nighttime shadows as its unsuspecting victim neared. Watching the scene unfold in front of me from only…
Cephalopod Soup: An Underwater Phenomenon
Mother Nature is a master of the sleight of hand. Take the shallow waters off the San Diego beach known as La Jolla Shores,…