WGBH midday host Henry Santoro spoke with photographer and New England native, Brian Skerry, about his love of sharks, his work with National Geographic, and his newest book. The transcript below has been edited for clarity.
Henry Santoro: Brian Skerry is considered the best underwater photographer in the world. He specializes in marine wildlife and underwater environments and he's been working with National Geographic since 1998. Their latest collaboration is called, “The Ultimate Book of Sharks” - your guide to these fierce and fantastic fish. And trust me, living here in New England you will want to sink your teeth into this book. Brian, welcome to Henry In The Hub and welcome back to WGBH.
Brian Skerry: Thanks very much Henry. Great to be here.
Santoro: You are a local guy born in Milford, grew up in Uxbridge, you went to school in Worcester. As a kid, did you fall in love with the sea and its creatures by swimming in the waters of Cape Cod?
Skerry: I did. You know, I can remember, from my earliest memories, my parents taking me to the beaches of Cape Cod, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island and just absolutely loving the ocean. I would come home all sunburned and salty. But, with this great sense of peace, and also a great sense of mystery, that I felt the ocean represented. I always wondered what was happening beneath those waves and wanted to explore that.
Santoro: This book, which was published by National Geographic Kids, I think the kids and the parents are going to be fighting and duking it out over this book, to see who can get their hands on it first. I mean it really is chock-full of things, all things sharks. Why don't you tell us how it's laid out?
Skerry: I published a book last year with National Geographic entitled, “Shark,” which was a monograph of my photography and some of my personal experiences. And that is for anybody, but it was more of an adult book, a coffee table book. This idea for the “Ultimate Book of Sharks,” was to really jampack a really high-quality book for children, that not only showed them photographs of these animals, but talked about a lot of cool facts and statistics, and ultimately tried to dispel some of the myths. I think sharks have long suffered from sort of this campaign of misinformation. We only hear about them when there may be a public safety concern. The reality is sharks are very vital to the health of our planet. You know every other breath that a human being takes comes from the ocean. So, the ocean is very important to our own lives. And sharks as predators play a vital role in that equation. So, this book was about some of the superlatives, you know, what's the fastest shark, the slowest shark, which one has the best camouflage? And which one has the strongest bite? You know the things that kids might be jazzed up about.
Santoro: And teeth the size of a TV remote?
Skerry: There you go.
Santoro: You describe yourself as being somewhat of a shark fanatic, and I think we can tell by the enthusiasm in your voice that you are. So, this project must have been a dream come true and there must have been some scary moments?
Skerry: Yeah, all those things are true, Henry. A lot of this work came out of four recent stories that I did for National Geographic Magazine that was an unprecedented thing for Geographic to do, to dedicate that many pages, that that much real estate to sort of a single genre of animals: sharks. But, we realized that there was a need to give sharks a makeover. And I spent a lot of time in the last few years. But, as you say, I've been a bit of a fanatic, I've been diving with sharks for over three decades, started here in New England. And over the years I’ve really evolved in terms of my view. I think as a 20-year-old kid diving off the coast of Rhode Island, I just wanted to be near a shark. I wanted to be in the water with a big predator, and that would give me street cred with my dive buddies. But I ultimately came to see them as something beautiful as a photo subject. But yes, there have been those dicey moments too. I think I've probably made many hundreds, if not thousands of dives with sharks, and there's been three or four times where I felt I had to get out of the water, it was getting a little too dicey.
Santoro: Well, thank you so much for coming in. Brian Skerry’s latest book is a National Geographic Kids Book. It is called,” The Ultimate Book of Sharks.” You'll want to pick this one up. Brian, thanks again.
Skerry: Thank you.
