Getting under the surface in the Cook Islands

Photography is one of the tools I use to satisfy my curiosity about the natural world. But while 99 percent of my photos are taken from land, more than 70 percent of Earth’s surface is covered by water. Life is short and nobody can see everything, of course, but my choice of subjects had significantly limited my worldview.

It’s a discrepancy that I’ve been trying to resolve off and on over the past decade or so. Just over a year ago, I made my greatest effort yet to explore the world beneath the waves as I explored the lagoons surrounding three of the Cook Islands in the South Pacific.

Swimming with green sea turtles

I really needed just one picture of a green sea turtle for an upcoming project, but pictures are often better when I get the chance to know my subject on a deeper level. And I’m very thankful for the hours I got to spend with the turtles off Rarotonga in the Cook Islands.

The most colorful show on Earth

As the leaves along the Cedar River in Washington state turn from green to yellow, gold, orange, and red, people walking along the river's banks may not notice there's an equally colorful display just under the water's surface. As the leaves change color, so, too, do the sockeye salmon returning to the river after spending the past couple years at sea.

The other side of water lilies

It's May in the Seattle arboretum. Woodpeckers and flickers are finishing their nests in brittle trees. Mallard ducks are taking their newly hatched ducklings for their first swims. And water lilies are beginning to turn the open water into a maze of lanes.