"Eye to eye" Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae), Papeete, Tahiti.
"A humpback whale glides effortlessly toward the surface, its barnacle-studded rostrum and pleated throat catching the deep blue light of the open ocean."
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"Armed and Adorable" Pom-Pom Crab (Lybia tessellata) Pulau Wey, Indonesia.
"A pom-pom crab brandishes its signature anemone 'pompoms' among coral rubble — tiny but fierce, and one of the ocean's most extraordinary examples of a symbiotic relationship. Those white fluffy pompoms it's holding are actually small sea anemones (Triactis producta), which it carries in its claws and waves at predators as a defence mechanism.
In return, the anemones get scraps of food from the crab — a classic mutualistic symbiosis"
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"The Blue Sentinel" Blue Ribbon Eel (Rhinomuraena quaesita) Pulau Wey, Indonesia.
"A male blue ribbon eel emerges from its sandy burrow, its flared nostril plumes and piercing golden eyes making it one of the reef's most otherworldly residents."
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"Uneasy Truce" Cleaner Shrimp (Lysmata amboinensis) at work on a Giant Moray Eel (Gymnothorax javanicus) Pulau Wey, Indonesia.
"A scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp fearlessly tends to a giant moray eel — trust between predator and cleaner, played out at the edge of those formidable jaws."
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"Living in Plain Sight" Glass Anemone Shrimp (Periclimenes brevicarpalis) Pulau Wey, Indonesia.
"Almost invisible against the pale folds of its host anemone, a glass shrimp reveals itself only through the faintest blush of violet — a masterclass in transparency."
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"The Reef in Full Voice" Honeycomb Grouper (Epinephelus merra) Raja Ampat, Indonesia.
"A honeycomb grouper pauses beneath a towering sea fan as anthias swirl through the blue — the reef in full, glorious bloom."
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"Silver Legion" Barracuda (Sphyraena putnamae) Raja Ampat, Indonesia.
"Two divers hover in quiet awe as a dense school of chevron barracuda holds its formation just above the sandy bottom — a wall of silver in the deep blue."
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"The Fan and the Deep" Gorgonian Sea Fan (Annella mollis or similar large Subergorgia species) Raja Ampat, Indonesia.
"A diver drifts above ancient gorgonian sea fans clinging to the reef wall — structures that may have been growing here for centuries, long before any human eye witnessed them."
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"World Within a Circle" Tenggol, Trengganu, W Malaysia.
"Through the porthole of a fisheye lens, a solitary diver floats above a reef bursting with soft corals, sea fans and crinoids — an entire ocean universe contained in a single frame."
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"Cathedral Blue" Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) Tonga.
"A humpback whale hangs suspended in the infinite blue of Tonga — unhurried, unbothered, utterly at home in a world we can only briefly visit"
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Reef Manta Ray (Mobula alfredi) and yellow-tailed fusiliers (Caesio cuning). Raja Ampat, Indonesia.
"Reef manta rays have patrolled these waters for millions of years, yet science has only begun to understand them. Each spot pattern on this animal's pale belly is unique — a natural barcode that researchers use to track individuals across entire ocean basins. This one has been here before. It will come back again."
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Bluestripe Snapper (Lutjanus kasmira) Raja Ampat, Indonesia. A school of bluestripe snapper (Lutjanus kasmira) moves as a single golden current above the coral, while a lone diver watches from the edge of the blue. For these fish, the school is not merely habit — it is survival, each individual made safer by the collective. The reef does not reward solitude."
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Pygmy Seahorses (Hippocampus bargibanti) Raja Ampat, Indonesia.
"Three pygmy seahorses
share a single gorgonian colony — and yet reveal themselves to almost no one. Smaller than a human thumbnail, they spend their entire lives on a single coral host, colour-matched so precisely that the reef keeps their secret even from those hovering inches away. Finding one is luck. Finding three is a privilege few divers ever know."
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Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) Tonga.
"A humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) mother turns toward the camera as her calf circles overhead in the shallows off Tonga. She has carried this calf for eleven months, crossed entire ocean basins to birth it here, and will nurse it for another year before releasing it to the sea. What passes between them in these moments, science can measure. What it means, only they know."
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Crimson magnificient anemone (Heteractis magnifica) Papua New Guinea
"Pink anthias drift like embers above a reef pinnacle in the Coral Triangle, where a crimson sea anemone shelters its resident clownfish beneath a blaze of red gorgonian fans. In these waters, every square centimetre of reef is spoken for — every surface claimed, every niche inhabited. This is what a healthy ocean looks like."
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Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) Tonga.
"A humpback whale descends into the abyss off Tonga, its white ventral surface catching the last light from above like a falling star. In the deep, the ocean keeps its own silence. The whale does not need us to witness it. And yet — here we are."
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"The odd couple" Leftr: Giant Moray (Gymnothorax javanicus), Right: Fimbriated Moray (Gymnothorax fimbriatus) Pulau Kapalai, Malaysia.
"A Giant Moray (Gymnothorax javanicus) and a Fimbriated Moray (Gymnothorax fimbriatus) occupy the same reef crevice in an alliance of convenience, their body language telling very different stories. The Giant — its white-rimmed eye calm and watchful — tolerates the proximity with the composure of a species that has little to fear; the Fimbriated, notoriously short-tempered, holds its jaw agape in a display that is equal parts respiratory reflex and unmistakable warning. That two apex ambush predators of such different temperament should share a single bolt-hole speaks to the pressure on prime real estate on a thriving Indo-Pacific reef — space, it seems, is the one thing even an eel must negotiate for.
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"The Smallest Show-off in the Coral Triangle" Squat Shrimp (Thor amboinensis) Pulau Kapalai, Sabah, Malaysia.
"On the rubble flats of Kapalai Island, a Squat Shrimp — Thor amboinensis, known informally as the Sexy Shrimp for its perpetual, swaying abdomen display — pauses momentarily on the substrate, antennae extended and alert. Barely larger than a fingernail, it is one of the Indo-Pacific's most charismatic small crustaceans, a creature whose outsized personality is entirely disproportionate to its dimensions"
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"Double Take" Black-saddled Toby (Canthigaster valentini) " Pulau Kapalai, Sabah, Malaysia. "A pair of Black-saddled Tobies, hover in the shadow of a coral-encrusted piling, their bold monochrome saddles and luminous spotted flanks catching the dive light against the darkness. One of the reef's most recognisable mimics — its striking pattern is copied by the Mimic Filefish — the Valentine's Pufferfish is rarely seen far from its partner, the two moving through the reef together with an unhurried, almost companionable ease"
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"Inside the Vortex" Bigeye Trevally (Caranx sexfasciatus) Pulau Sipadan, Malaysia.
"At Sipadan — the only oceanic island in Malaysian waters, rising 600 metres from the floor of the Celebes Sea — vast schools of Bigeye Trevally rotate in perpetual silver tornadoes along the reef wall, a behaviour so reliable and so overwhelming in scale that divers enter the water already knowing they will be engulfed. Here, my son Jet, is absorbed into the mass, reduced to silhouette, the fish parting and closing around the human form as if it were simply another current to navigate. Jacques Cousteau called these waters one of the world's last virgin seas. The trevally, indifferent to the compliment, have been doing this long before anyone came to watch"
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"Cathedral of Colour" Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea. "Crimson sea fans arc toward the surface as anthias swirl through the blue above a reef wall at Walindi, Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea. Below, a clownfish tends its anemone in the shelter of the coral — a pocket of permanence amid the reef's perpetual motion. Kimbe Bay sits at the beating heart of the Coral Triangle, its waters sheltering an estimated 60 percent of the world's known coral species within a single enclosed sea. At Walindi, that staggering biodiversity compresses into reef walls of extraordinary density and colour — a living argument, if one were needed, for why these waters must be protected"
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"First Light" Vavau, Tonga. "A Humpback Whale cow and her newborn calf glide through shallow, sunlit water in perfect formation, the calf instinctively tucked into its mother's hydrodynamic shadow. In the early weeks of life, a Humpback calf rarely strays more than a body length from its mother — drinking up to 600 litres of her fat-rich milk daily as it builds the blubber reserves that will carry it through its first ocean crossing. Rendered in monochrome, the ancient geometry of the pair — two bodies moving as one — speaks to a bond as old as the sea itself"
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"Hidden in Plain Sight" Bargibant's Pygmy Seahorse (Hippocampus bargibanti) Raja Ampat, Indonesia.
"A Bargibant's Pygmy Seahorse (Hippocampus bargibanti) clings to its host gorgonian sea fan, its body so precisely mimicking the coral's pink tubercles and branching texture that it virtually ceases to exist as a separate animal. Barely 2 centimetres in length, this species was unknown to science until 1969 — discovered not in the wild, but when a gorgonian was collected and brought to a laboratory. So complete is its camouflage that pygmy seahorses are thought to spend their entire lives on a single sea fan, never needing to venture beyond the sanctuary of their living disguise"
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"Leviathan" Humpback Whale Megaptera novaeangliae). Vavau, Tonga.
"A Humpback Whale hangs suspended in the dark water column off the Kingdom of Tonga, its grooved ventral pleats and brilliant white pectoral fins catching the last of the ambient light. Each austral winter, thousands of Humpbacks migrate from their Antarctic feeding grounds to the warm, sheltered waters of the Tongan archipelago to breed and calve — making Tonga one of the last places on Earth where swimmers may legally enter the water alongside these giants. Shot from above in monochrome, the whale becomes something beyond a wildlife subject: a monument of muscle and bone, ancient and unhurried, utterly indifferent to the small creature hovering behind the lens"
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"Congregation" Pinnate Batfish (Platax pinnatus). Pulau Sipadan, Malaysia.
"A swirling aggregation of Pinnate Batfish (Platax pinnatus) forms a living column in the blue above the reef at Sipadan Island, Malaysian Borneo, as two divers hover in silent admiration. One of the world's great oceanic pinnacles, Sipadan rises from the deep waters of the Celebes Sea to deliver encounters of breathtaking scale and intimacy — and few sights on the reef are more arresting than a dense school of Batfish suspended between diver and surface, utterly indifferent to the audience they have gathered. A defining image from Malaysia's most iconic dive destination"
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