Turtle Escort | National Geographic

the whole subject of leatherback turtles
was a bit speculative in terms of
photography these are animals that are
somewhat enigmatic haven’t really been
photographed very much certainly not
underwater but in this case I was able
to actually target these animals on this
one occasion the animal had been at the
surface had begun to dive and I could
tell that it saw me and sort of
positioned its back towards me and began
these long steady strokes we’ve got
these two beautiful yellow remoras that
are attached to it and you’ve got this
school of small fish sort of swimming in
front of it a kind of an escort it’s
it’s like its own little universe with
all these other animals sort of
circulating around it you have to worry
about light and you have to worry about
composition and you have to worry about
shutter speeds and apertures and all the
things that you have to worry about any
time you make a photograph but in this
case you’re doing it all while swimming
holding your breath and kicking as hard
as you can to keep up with an animal
that could easily leave me in the dust
if it wanted to