Tuna Frenzy

About This Work

For years I imagined this image. Most people only ever see a tuna frenzy from the surface, birds diving and water boiling, and I wanted a frame that lifted the thin blue veil and showed the chaos from above and below at once.

Getting there is a race. You have to read the action, get into perfect position, and be in the water before it ends, and most times it's over by the time I dive in. This time everything aligned, and I could feel it. I slid in as calmly as I could, right in the middle of the madness, tuna passing behind, beside, and below me as fast as torpedoes while I shot vertical frames, splitting my focus between the birds striking from above and the blur below. A minute later it was over, the school gone in search of the next bait ball. I reviewed the back of the camera, and the image I had carried in my head for all those years had finally come to life.

This is what those moments actually look like when the ocean erupts. Both worlds, one frame.