I began exploring the aquatic realm at sixteen, learning to scuba dive with my father in a frigid British quarry surrounded by thickly frosted ground. My first time out, an icy November day packed with four dives, the only living thing I saw was a lone crayfish, but thankfully I persevered. Since then, my journey as a marine biologist and underwater photographer has given me unique access to the many overlooked creatures of coral reefs, culminating in my book The World Beneath.
I captured some of my earliest photo-graphs in the Maldives in 1998, when the first global coral bleaching event devastated many of the Indian Ocean’s reefs. Although these photos were decidedly average, the subject matter sparked a fundamental shift in my consciousness, and my plan to become a terrestrial zoologist plunged beneath the waves. The following year, I spent several months on a conservation project in Indonesia working ...
