Brian Skerry

Brian Skerry came of age in a working class town in Massachusetts, 35 miles west of Boston. His affinity for water came not from a backyard swimming pool, which his parents had, but from summer outings to the beaches of New England.

“Even from a young age, I remember being enticed by the sea, especially here in New England, where the water is dark and mysterious,” Skerry says. “I looked out at the waves and had a curiosity. There was a sense of discovery the ocean held for me, the idea that there were mysteries.”

Skerry started diving in 1977, at the age of 15. A few years later, he attended a diving conference in Boston, and intrigue turned into a dream.

“I can remember being 17, seeing underwater documentary filmmakers show their work, and I had this epiphany,” he says. “A light went on. I realized this is the career for me: being an ocean explorer, but doing it with a camera.”

Skerry wanted to be a photographer for National Geographic, chances he now puts at a million to one, but he achieved that dream in 1998. Since then, he’s produced striking images seen by millions that reveal unseen beauty – and tragedy – in our seas. Whether it’s great white sharks, whales or baby seals, Skerry gets in there close. He’s been a TED speaker and became a Nat Geo Explorer. He admits he’s succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, but there’s a catch:

Skerry set out to capture the wonder of the underwater world when he was a young man, and he’s done that. He didn’t expect to capture its destruction.

He’s done that too.

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Weekly: How have you seen the ocean change over the course of your career?

Skerry: The change is dramatic. I would have never anticipated the level of change in just those few decades. I wanted to do pretty pictures, but I started to shoot environmental pictures. In the ’70s, ’80s, I would see these huge schools of fish go by endlessly. I don’t see that today. I would see a lot of sharks, coral reefs. Many of those places, they’re gone now. We’ve lost 50 percent of the coral reefs in the world, and 90 percent of the big fish. We kill 100 million sharks a year. That’s visible. I went to a place in Mexico a few years ago, in the Yucatan. It use to be one of the best reefs, but it was dead.

What I’ve personally witnessed in those years has been traumatic. My hope is that we can turn it around.

How do we do that?

I think there are many solutions to the problem. On planet Earth, 98 percent of the biosphere – where livable habitat can exist – is water. Yet only about 1 or 2 percent is truly protected. On land, which is a small percent of where life exists, there are places often times that are 12 – or 15 – or 20-percent protected. We’ve done a lot better job protecting land than the ocean, yet over 50 percent of the air we breathe comes from the ocean. Yet we treat it with disregard, like a dump, and fill it with plastic. We do what we want with it, everything fair game. We need to create far more marine protected areas in the ocean. Most rational scientists would recommend 50 percent. We’re at 1 or 2 percent, but if we get up to 10 or 20, you can see substantial change. The ocean does have the ability to heal itself.

In the moment, are you ever disturbed by the images you’re capturing?

At the moment, you’re in the zone, but when you think about it after the fact, it does disturb you. I just got back yesterday from the Arctic, where I was at a remote site camped on the beach for two weeks. I would go out to the sea every day to photograph polar bears and narwhals, and the Northwest Passage is free of ice. I have two children. I greatly fear what their life is going to be like. We see a blue jay or a squirrel, and we think that’s nature. Or we swim in kelp off Monterey. We’re constantly adjusting, and I fear that with climate change, things are progressing so rapidly that the change is cataclysmic. I hope that science will come up with some way to reduce carbon in the atmosphere.

You’ve been up close to a southern right whale that has never seen a human. As it swam by with a softball-sized eye, did you sense a sentience?

They’re clearly curious, and choosing to interact with you on their terms. There’s a big thinking process there, a mind that’s really doing some thinking. And I’ll say that many animals exhibit intelligence, and certainly a personality. Scientists, I think in time, will come to accept that.

BRIAN SKERRY comes to the Golden State Theatre Tuesday, July 21, at 7pm. $25-$30. 417 Alvarado St., Monterey. 649-1070, www.goldenstatetheatre.com