60ft Deep

“Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography.” George Eastman, founder of Kodak

“I don’t get it.” Jack points his thumb over his broad shoulders at the Kodak poster hanging on the wall behind him. Curled gloss edges rise up to meet the well-thumbed corners of grainy film photographs scattered and pinned around the quote.

“What’s not to get? I work with light.” Mild annoyance flickers in Kat’s voice, both at Jack’s stupid question and herself for inviting him back to her flat to negotiate. “Do you simply work with words, or do you tell stories, share emotions… make people feel something?” Kat sits at her wooden desk and lightly brushes her forefinger over the intricate wooden carvings, always filling passing moments with gratitude for the furniture gifted from the Indonesian locals.

“Right, I see. I tell my stories with words and you tell yours with light.” Jack paces over to stand behind Kat. She doesn’t like how big he feels in her small, tidy one-room flat. How his tall, muscular frame and too tight t-shirt fill the space and dwarf her few pieces of mismatched furniture.

“Here they are.” Kat shuffles from the seat and gestures for Jack to sit. He scrolls through the photos on the screen, and Kat can’t help the small bloom of pride that rises in her belly with every gasp or sharp inhale he makes.

“This one. I definitely need this one.” Jack’s eyes hungrily devour the graphic scene on the computer screen: two fishermen hauling a large shark onto a wooden boat, as a man in the water tries to help push the carcass up from below. The diver’s mask and face are smeared a diluted red, the water a cloud of seeping blood.

“Jack, that’s not how I work. I invited you here to show you a sample of my photography here on the islands, but you can’t have these photos for your story. I won’t have you writing about these men without meeting them or asking for their permission.”

“Fine, let’s meet them then.” Jack folds his arms in a silent challenge. He is an investigative journalist who has interviewed murderers, gangsters, politicians and every other type of criminal – he isn’t concerned about coming face to face with a few shark fishermen.

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“You’re early.”

Jack smiles at the note of surprise in Kat’s voice and takes in the sleepy beach around him. Two Indonesian men and one gangly teenager load supplies into a boat that Jack doubts is seaworthy.

“Don’t worry, she floats… most of the time,” Kat chimes as if sensing his doubts. She smirks before returning her attention to the dials and screws on her camera’s underwater housing. The spindling arms of the strobe lights jut out of the dome centrepiece like the legs of a glossy metallic spider.

One of the men claps Jack on his back, above his backpack, and guides him towards the boat. Around a wad of chewing gum, he asks, “you ready to see your first shark, Journalist Jack? Today boat, tomorrow markets.”

The warmth of the fisherman’s hand resting near Jack’s shoulder adds to the already humid morning. Jack self-consciously tugs at the blue cotton shirt clinging to his body. He wades into the warm lapping water before two strong, gnarled hands help pull his unsteady, heavyset frame up and into the boat. The two men eagerly shake Jack’s hand as Kat gracefully steps aboard.

As Jack clings to a red plastic bucket and curses the number of waves in the ocean, he watches Kat move around the boat and interact with the fishermen with an easy confidence that shows she’s done this a million times before. Jack sees their mutual respect in every easy laugh, inside joke, and biscuit shared. He is sick at the thought a wildlife photographer could befriend men who slaughter something she claims to love. Still, he admits to himself these are not the hardened, lawbreaking fisherman he had envisioned. Jack also concedes his unease more likely stems from the hotel breakfast churning in his stomach rather than Kat’s hypocrisy. He glares at the horizon to avoid the fishermen’s laughter each time he heaves what was once hash browns and fried eggs into the bucket.

Jack watches in silent terror as Kat’s body disappears below the dark blue surface, a flurry of white bubbles left in her wake. “Ready, Journalist Jack?” he manages to hear over the deafening beat of his heart.

“No!” He doesn’t correct the fisherman on the irritating nickname as a firm push sends him into the ocean. Cool water floods down the back of his wetsuit, mingling with the warmth of his paralysing fear. Saltwater burns Jack’s throat like cheap vodka as he wildly attempts to tread the dark water threatening to pull him down into an azure abyss. He glances up to the sky and wonders how it could be so crisp and beautiful without a singular ominous grey cloud to signify his last moments on this Earth.

“Breathe, Journalist Jack. Just breathe. No worries.” Jack vaguely registers Sammy’s clipped accented English as the fisherman’s hands reach to inflate Jack’s Buoyancy Control Device. Jack feels the vest gently tighten around his ribs as both the BCD and his lungs fill with air.

“No worries here,” Sammy repeats through a wide, tobacco-stained smile. “Let’s go find our dear friend, Kat.”

Sammy adjusts his mask and winks at Jack before turning and gently paddling away. Jack swears into his regulator before following behind Sammy in a flurry of whitewash as his fins slap the surface with each laborious kick.

Minutes later, Jack listens to the rattling sound of air push and pull through his regulator as he shakes his head at Sammy, who is showing Jack how to deflate his BCD. Jack knows his resolute hell no gesture hasn’t been lost in translation, but Sammy’s swift hands efficiently deflate both their BCDs, and the ocean slowly swallows them in her liquid embrace.

Jack’s teeth clamp around the rubber mouthpiece of his regulator with an intensity to fracture bones, but he barely registers the pain. His eyes wildly dart back and forth as he sinks deeper, deeper, deeper. He wonders how this could possibly be a 60ft dive and if they’ve stumbled into in an underwater crevasse by mistake. As they descend, Sammy attempts to loosen his steadying grip on Jack’s forearm but the panicked journalist reforms the connection. Jack’s heartbeat slows as he registers the crinkle of Sammy’s eyes behind his mask and the tell-tale curve of a smile around his regulator.

Jack soon finds himself smiling as he watches dancing rays of light pass over small schools of fish. The tightly bound muscles in Jack’s body sag with relief as Sammy settles them both on the sandy ocean floor. Through the plume of sand and silt that briefly envelops the two men, Jack can still discern the sun’s bright light filtering through the turquoise sea and the reassuring smile on his diving companion’s face.

Kat approaches the two men nestled on the seafloor and laughs into her regulator at the sight of Jack clinging to Sammy. In that moment, she wonders at just how far she’s come from photographing the sunburnt skin and cheesy smiling – sometimes sulking – faces of families on their tropical holidays. Kat quickly snaps a photo as she nears the scene, focusing her lens on the fisherman’s patient and jovial expression.

Jack registers Kat’s casual approach with the same feeling of envy he experienced earlier that day. Her movements are as effortless and languid below the water as above. She gives an OKAY gesture with one hand, which Sammy returns after a brief assessing glance at Jack. Kat doesn’t settle on the seafloor with the men but remains buoyant in the gentle sweep of the current.

The endless shades of blue are pierced by gliding shadows edging closer, closer, closer. Jack tries to remember Kat’s instructions from earlier in the day about sitting still and remembering to breathe. “Breathing always helps,” the other fisherman, who was also their boat Captain, had gleefully chimed in. Maintaining his hold on Sammy’s arm, Jack closes his eyes and focuses on the air in his regulator. Push and Pull. In and Out. Jack pries his eyes open just as a toothy grin with far too many serrated teeth glides by. He waits with bated breath for the predator to turn and circle back. But the shark cruises into the shadows, no longer curious as hundreds of millions of years of evolution signal more interesting possibilities and worthwhile uses of its energy. Jack watches the shark and his conditioned fear recede into the abyss.

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Kat places her coffee in the corner of her desk and settles into her chair, steeling herself to open Jack’s email. As she hovers her finger over the mousepad, she considers the roller coaster of expressions she had witnessed on Jack’s photogenic face – surprise, terror, wonder, grudging respect, sadness, and gratitude. With rising uncertainty, she clicks the link in his email, and the article fills the computer screen.

The Daily Times

Jack Syrah

Published 9:00 a.m. ET 6 August 2021

There is a monster we don’t want to face. During my recent travels to Indonesia, I met with ex-pat wildlife photographer Kat Stevenson, hoping she could get me up close and personal with this monster. She did.

The first thing I noticed was the smell – a heady concoction of spoiled fish, salty brine, chemicals and tobacco fumes. Kat lead me through endless alleys of haphazard tarp-covered stalls and semi-permanent structures that branched out in every direction of the fish market. I watched my step to avoid standing on the shark carcasses laid about on the floor, seemingly organised by size rather than species. According to a recent International Study in the Fisheries Journal research, 38.5% of shark fins from a nationwide sample belonged to endangered or vulnerable species.

Now, if you travel to Indonesia to witness – and smell – this ecological disaster in person and decide to book the photographic guide services offered by Kat, she will tell you she works with light. Yet, after scuba diving into what I’d like to call shark-infested waters (even if just for my own ego) followed by a borderline traumatising visit to the local fish market, I’d suggest otherwise. Kat Stevenson is one of many activists who works in the dark, gritty and sometimes rancid places that we consumers don’t want to think about. She works on the ocean floor amongst the sharks she strives to protect, and in the fish markets, amongst their lifeless bodies. She photographs this darkness to shine a light on endangered marine species.

The sad truth is our oceans aren’t infested with sharks. In fact, we had to actively seek out these predators on our scuba dive because their numbers are declining at an alarming rate. It’s a tempting solution to cast the net of blame on the fishermen. But what wouldn’t you do to put your own kids through school or put food on the table? The Jaws franchise may not want to admit it, but the only real monster is the consumer demand for shark fins and the unsustainable and flawed policies governing their collection…

Kat pauses from reading to scroll through the rest of Jack’s article. His praise of her work surprises her nearly as much as his choice of her photos. Nestled between censored pictures of the fish market and the distinctive silhouette of a hammerhead shark is her photo of Jack clinging to Sammy’s arm and a small caption reading: New friendship under pressure – 60ft deep.