Bestiary: the deep & its oddities

The underwater world is perhaps the most alien place on our planet: next to its inhabitants, any movie extraterrestrial looks like a close relative. Here is the shark that doesn't know how to stop, the octopus that changes colour with its mood, the fish with the face of a born villain, and the jellyfish adrift in its own little cosmos. Getting close to creatures like these and catching their character is no small task. The name and the camera settings are under each frame; the characters, as always, speak for themselves.

Sand Tiger Shark
Canon EOS 5D Mark III + Sigma 35/1.4 A · 35 mm · f/1.8 · 1/60 s · ISO 1250

“The photographer's last photo” — this one was a little unnerving to take: the shark was hungry. Let me answer the obvious question straight away: yes, there are sharks off Pattaya, but very rarely — the “crystal-clear” seawater the tourists so admire is, for a shark, deadly dirty almost all year round. And a shark keeps moving even in its sleep: the moment it stops, it suffocates. It has no gill muscles, so oxygenated water is driven through the gills passively, by movement alone.

Smoothnose Wedgefish (Fish-Evil)
Canon EOS 5D Mark III + Sigma 35/1.4 A · 35 mm · f/1.8 · 1/60 s · ISO 1250

And here's Fish-Evil in person — a rare guest of the Thai seas. In truth the wedgefish is perfectly harmless; nature simply handed it the face of a fully paid-up cartoon villain.

Northern Pacific Giant Octopus
Canon EOS 5D Mark III + Sigma 35/1.4 A · 35 mm · f/1.4 · 1/40 s · ISO 2500

The octopus is a creature of moods: anger turns it red, fright turns it white — which is precisely why you mustn't shoot it with flash. It can squeeze through any gap its eye will fit through. But the most astonishing part is the breeding: in season, one of the male's arms turns into a special organ, the hectocotylus, which detaches and sets off on its own (!) to find a female and mate with her. The romance is rather spoiled, though, by one detail: the male himself dies of blood loss in the process.

Seadragon
Canon EOS 5D Mark III + Sigma 35/1.4 A · 35 mm · f/4 · 1/100 s · ISO 1250

Wildlife photographer though I am, I still wouldn't venture to say which of this dragon's bits are its legs, which are its arms, and which are just frills for the look of the thing.

Weedy Sea Dragon
Canon EOS 5D Mark III + Sigma 35/1.4 A · 35 mm · f/1.8 · 1/30 s · ISO 2500

Its weedy cousin swims slowly and unhurriedly, and sees off predators with some of the best camouflage in the business: to look at it, it's just a drifting frond of seaweed, nothing more.

Longhorn Cowfish
Canon EOS 5D Mark III + Sigma 35/1.4 A · 35 mm · f/2.8 · 1/125 s · ISO 640

When threatened, the longhorn cowfish releases poison into the water — only it has no immunity to its own poison. So it's strictly forbidden to photograph it with flash: startle it, and it may inadvertently poison itself — or simply die of a heart attack.

Lemon Tetra
Canon EOS 5D Mark III + Sigma 35/1.4 A · 35 mm · f/2 · 1/30 s · ISO 2500

The lemon tetra hovers in its lemon-tinted water, where it's almost impossible to make out: its protective colouring keeps the little fish invisible to predators.

Jellyfish
Canon EOS 5D Mark III + Sigma 35/1.4 A · 35 mm · f/2.8 · 1/125 s · ISO 640

And to close — a jellyfish, adrift in its own cosmos. No brain, no heart, no cares: just a pulsing bead of light drifting through the dark, like a small galaxy of its own.