A Photographer’s Mission to Save the Ocean Begins With Powerful Images

Jul 24, 2024

Jeremy Gray

Split image: On the left, a whale's tail fluke emerges from the ocean at sunset, shimmering with water droplets. On the right, a close-up of a curious seal under water, its whiskers and large eyes highlighted against a greenish-blue backdrop.

National Geographic photographer Brian Skerry has spent decades diving around the globe, telling the stories of the world’s oceans. For his latest projects, years in the making, he has been much closer to home, documenting the unprecedented — and deadly — changes happening in the Gulf of Maine, the waters Skerry grew up visiting as a child on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

The Gulf of Maine Is Warming Faster Than 97% of the World’s Oceans

The Gulf of Maine is 7,500 miles long and 1,000 feet deep, and it is 36,000 square miles of ocean stretching from Massachusetts to the Maritimes in Canada. It’s home to remarkable biodiversity and has been the lifeblood of people in the New England region for millennia.

A vivid sunset over a coastal landscape. The sky is bathed in shades of orange, pink, and purple, and a lone bird flies across the scene. The foreground features rocky terrain and grassy patches, leading to a calm sea and distant land formations. — Isle of Shoals Sunset — Gulf of Maine

Unfortunately, the Gulf of Maine is imperiled like much of the world’s oceans. Worse yet, the gulf’s waters are warming faster than 97% of the global ocean, offering a startling preview of a looming disaster and destroying ocean life and habitats with terrifying rapidity.

Close-up of a golden-colored fish with a barbel on its chin, swimming in clear blue-green water. The fish's large eye and scales are sharply detailed, and the background is blurred, highlighting the fish. — A red cod swims through healthy kelp forest; Cashes Ledge, Gulf of Maine.

As part of a cover story in National Geographic last month and a three-part documentary NOVA series premiering on PBS this week, Skerry investigates what’s happening in the Gulf of Maine, how it’s affecting animals and people alike, and what can still be done to curb the destruction.

A man in a wetsuit and cap sits on a boat holding an underwater camera. The boat is on calm water with mountainous terrain and a partly cloudy sky in the background. A blue and green striped bag sits on the bench next to him. — Photographer Brian Skerry on assignment.

Photography Connects People to the Stories That Matter

Through his lens, Skerry tells the story of one of Earth’s most incredible — and endangered — bodies of water. As beautiful as the Gulf of Maine is, Skerry admits that the damage it has experienced can be challenging to look at.

Skerry tells PetaPixel of a dive he did off the coast of the Schoodic Peninsula in Maine with a scientist. The scientist is studying the health of kelp in the Gulf of Maine as part of a grant, and during the dive, “he took his pencil and scratched out the word, ‘Baked,” Skerry recalls. In other words, the kelp had been killed by the prior summer’s hot weather.

Underwater scene depicting a vibrant orange fish swimming amongst green seaweed. Surrounding the orange fish are other blue-green fish, creating a diverse aquatic environment with blue-green hues and soft coral formations on the ocean floor. — Cashes Ledge, a rich region of marine biodiversity located approximately 90-miles off the coast within the Gulf of Maine. On Ammen Rock, the shallowest area on Cashes Ledge, lies a lush kelp forest. This kelp forest is the largest kelp forest on the Continental Shelf of North America and is home to a variety of fish species including cod, cunner and pollock. Many invertebrates cover the bottom here as well, including mussels and sea stars.

“We’re seeing change in the life of a grant,” the scientist told Skerry. A grant is usually a couple of years long, so to see a kelp population go from healthy to compromised during a single grant period is unprecedented.

While it can be easy to dismiss the damage as, “Oh, it’s just kelp,” that would be a grave mistake. The baked kelp reflects damage to an entire ecosystem, and the warmer waters that are destroying it have repercussions all the way up the food chain.

A common tern tries to feed its chick a butterfish, but the offering is too wide to swallow. Butterfish now outnumber the slender silver fish that terns favor, such as herring and sand lance. | Photo by Brian Skerry / National Geographic

The Human Side of the Ocean

Skerry’s work has always focused on the natural world, what’s happening to the oceans. Still, he knows the importance of showing the human side of the story — how ocean destruction impacts people, whether they live on the coast or much farther inland.

Sea Change: The Gulf of Maine not only includes the perspectives of the scientists working in the gulf but also of the fishers and people who rely on the ocean, including the Indigenous people who have relied upon the oceans for more than 10,000 years.

“In the past four decades spent exploring these waters, I have witnessed how such declines have made the ecosystem weaker and more vulnerable in ways I never imagined,” Skerry tells Anna Peele of National Geographic.

Among the marvels that still exist within the Gulf of Maine are gray seals. One approached photographer Brian Skerry with wide-eyed curiosity during a recent dive at the Isles of Shoals. | Photo by Brian Skerry / National Geographic

Skerry knows that his role as a photographer and visual storyteller is vital, but that he must rely heavily on scientists and researchers to contextualize what’s happening to the environment.

A large black whale breaches the surface of the ocean, creating a splash as it leaps out of the water with its flippers spread wide in an expressive display against a cloudy sky. — A North Atlantic Right Whale breaches in the Bay of Fundy, Canada, an arm of the Gulf of Maine.

We Must Look at Climate Change, Even When It’s Hard to Stomach

“My goal is to help people understand what’s happening in our world,” Skerry says.

He also knows that as the situation gets more dire, his images become inherently more negative and the mission more critical.

A grey seal with speckled fur is underwater, facing the camera with its flippers crossed, resembling a human-like pose. The background is a clear blue ocean with some seaweed on the ocean floor. Another seal can be faintly seen in the distance. — A Grey Seal poses in the waters off of Acadia National Park in the Gulf of Maine.

“I am a pessimistic optimist,” Skerry says. “I believe that we’re living at a pivotal moment in history where, maybe for the first time in human history, humans understand both the problems and the solutions. We just need a collective will to move towards the solutions.”

Skerry thinks photographers can be instrumental in moving people toward the required solutions. Visuals are compelling and help create a personal relationship between people and a story. When paired with science and research, photography can achieve a lot.

A whale tail peeks above the ocean surface at sunset, droplets of water cascading off. The golden light of the setting sun illuminates the tail and reflects off the water, creating a serene and majestic scene. — North Atlantic Right Whale in the Bay of Fundy, Canada

“There’s a very powerful triumvirate. You’ve got three different things you can triangulate between a person story, the visuals, and the science,” the photographer explains. “I think if all three of those things can be presented to people, it presents a very strong case and moves us in the direction we need to go.”

“There’s a real urgency now,” Skerry adds.

There’s Still Time

Skerry also knows conservation works and that human action can positively impact the environment. He’s seen it first-hand around the world when visiting ecosystems under legal protections. They are doing much better than the surrounding areas, and in some cases, significant damage has been reversed.

A close-up underwater shot of a fish with a greenish-brown body and pronounced blue eyes swimming among red and green seaweed. The background is primarily green, indicating the underwater environment.

“I started diving 47 years ago in these Gulf of Maine waters, and worked for National Geographic magazine for 26 years doing over 30 feature stories, seven covers. I’ve always wanted to do a story on my native waters, but another shiny object always took me somewhere else,” Skerry says.

“But when this scientific paper came out a few years ago that said the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 97% of the rest of the global ocean, I said, ‘Wow, there’s an urgency. I really want to tell this story and help people understand what climate change is,'” he continues.

But there’s also a certain pressure to working on a story about your home. It’s “very personal,” Skerry says.

Now that he has finished his feature story for National Geographic and the Sea Change documentary is about to premiere on PBS, it’s bittersweet for the photographer.

Rare North Atlantic right whales glide through Cape Cod Bay in Massachusetts. These whales, some of the most endangered in the world, feed primarily on tiny creatures called copepods. As water temperatures rise, copepods have become leaner, imperiling the whales and larval lobsters that depend on them. | Photo by Brian Skerry and Steve De Neef / National Geographic

“I’ve always wanted to do a story on my native waters for a big platform. I wanted to do it for National Geographic, or in this case, PBS too. Something like that would have always been a dream. So that’s great,” Skerry says.

“But on the other hand, the bitter part is that it’s a tale of woe. A tale of problems.”

“When I started decades ago, I would have never dreamed that [the Gulf of Maine] would look the way it looks today,” Skerry adds, saying that so many stories from the region must still be told.

Cover of National Geographic magazine featuring a photograph of underwater fish swimming in a murky body of water. The cover includes article headlines such as "The Science of Stress," "Lava Tubes," "Gulf of Maine," and "Rescuing Histories.

As a Maine native and someone who has spent a considerable portion of my life on the coast, I am immensely grateful for Skerry’s work on this story. It hits close to home for me and millions of others.

However, the devastation, damage, and urgency for action aren’t unique to my home. These problems impact everyone in different, meaningful ways, no matter where they are.

The first part of the three-part Sea Change: The Gulf of Maine documentary series premieres tonight on PBS Nova, with the remaining two episodes airing on July 31 and August 7, respectively. More information about the series is available on PBS Nova’s website.

Skerry’s National Geographic cover story is available now.

Image credits: Brian Skerry, National Geographic, and PBS Nova.