April 2026 Wildlife Photography Contest Intermediate Category Winner

I have been fortunate to dive in many beautiful places, but I return to Cabo Pulmo — a National Marine Sanctuary in Baja California Sur — again and again. This sanctuary, now nearly thirty years old, demonstrates what becomes possible when we protect even a portion of our oceans. Our oceans are just as responsible for the air we breathe as the forests on land, and it matters deeply to me that my underwater photographs capture all we stand to lose if we fail to protect them.

Diving and photography have much in common. Both demand patience, practice, persistence, and flexibility. You must know your equipment, move slowly and with intention, stay aware of your surroundings, and be ready to adapt when conditions change. My plan for this dive was to photograph the resident bull sharks that have put Cabo Pulmo on the dive map. Not far from shore lies a site called El Vencedor, where a small tuna boat wreck rests on the sand at around 65 feet — and with it, a high probability of encountering one of nature’s most formidable apex predators. I had shot video of the sharks here before on my iPhone, but had never brought my Nikon to the site. This time, I came for a shark shot. The site is also teeming with life: octopuses, moray eels, pufferfish, and large schools of grouper, triggerfish, amberjacks, and the common graybar grunt.

We moved slowly along the sandy bottom, as protocol dictates when viewing sharks — stay low, move slowly, and let them come to you. While waiting for the sharks to circle around, a large school of graybar grunts began moving towards me. I swam forward slowly and deliberately, staying low and exhaling gently so my bubbles would not startle them — wondering, too, whether the sharks might just be on the other side of the school. The grunts surged towards me in a kind of stampede, staring straight into my lens, parting only at the last moment before closing in around me again. It was breathtaking. I shot as quickly as my strobes could recycle, capturing the moment when the disciplines of diving and photography converged into a single frame.