A lemon shark silently glides through the shallows. The tip of its caudal making just the smallest of ripples on the surface of the water. A yellow pilot fish effortless mimics the movement just off the right pectoral fin. The texture of the sand is fine, ground up coral. It’s color is white, but reflects the green of the jungle just meters away. The moment passes quickly, but fortunately the image lasts forever. How was it captured?

Photographing an image of a beautiful shark takes several factors. First you need sharks! Second you need clear water! So, good bye San Diego and hello Bora Bora. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to visit Bora Bora. For the uninitiated, this South Pacific island wonderland lies northwest of Tahiti in French Polynesia. It is essentially one mountainous island surrounded by small islands and a coral reef. Between the reef and the main island is a calm lagoon teeming with life. And that is where the magic takes place.

One of the first things that struck me about Bora Bora was the color. The lagoon ranges from a light turquoise to cobalt blue depending on the depths and the height of the sun. Should a random cloud pass over, the water is transformed into a kaleidoscope of blues and greens, changing before your eyes. The sky is otherworldly clear and blue and the mountains lush green.

Below the water the reefs teem with color. Fish, eels, rays and sharks swim about, showing off shapes and colors that are almost hallucinogenic. The variety is so absolutely astounding it leaves one wondering why? How? I’m sure there is a biological reason for every shade of color, stripe, shape and extra fin and I could easily image how a marine biologist could spend a lifetime studying these variations in a single spot.

As one gets deeper, the world of fish give way to the larger denizens of the reefs. Beautiful rays skim the floor of the lagoon while black tip reef sharks keep a steady eye on the action. Deep, deep below, the lemon sharks swim by completely undisturbed by the action above.

But I digress; back to the story behind the image of “Silent Hunter.” After a day in the water, I had retired to the deck of our bungalow and sat watching the sun close out another day. With the setting of the sun, the lemon sharks tend to come closer to the shore in search of an easy morsel or two. As I sat there contemplating the beauty around me, my skin tight from a day of sun and salt, a lone shark moved toward my deck with absolutely no urgency. I turned my polarizer filter all the way to cut all reflection off the surface of the water, set my aperture to f5.6, and simply looked straight down as the shark swam below my dangling feet. I could never have planned this image and it seems that nature was giving me a wink and nod. It was a brief, but special moment; the type of moment that makes photography so rewarding! And boy how great this image looks BIG!

“Silent Hunter”