The Pacific Northwest’s Underwater Wilderness

The rich and murky undersea world off the Pacific Northwest inspires a photographer to endure freezing waters to shoot dazzling creatures.

Dressed in a dry suit, boots, thick gloves, and a 50-pound lead vest to keep him from bobbing to the surface like a cork, rolled into 45-degree waters off the coast of British Columbia in 1995, embarking on a project to photograph the marine life that thrives in this frigid ecosystem. Over the next 15 years he would take the plunge hundreds of times, each dive an opportunity to capture images of another species.

鈥淣o one had tried to photograph them artfully before, and that was my goal,鈥 says Hall, an award-winning underwater photographer whose images comprise .

Drawn to the challenge of taking pictures in cold water, which is murkier and darker than warm water because of its high concentration of green algae, Hall wanted to be one of the first to catalogue the numerous fish, mammals, and plants living in a vast expanse of ocean ranging from Northern California to Alaska.

鈥淗e combines the inquiring and exacting eye of a scientist with the soul and vision of an artist to produce uniquely beautiful underwater images that educate as much as they inspire,鈥 Christopher Newbert, a renowned underwater photographer, writes in the book鈥檚 foreword.

Tentacled moon jellyfish, transparent candy stripe shrimp, and a Pacific octopus, the largest in the world, with a 16-foot arm span, appear in this book, illuminating a world that few people will ever see for themselves. Hall also witnessed the largest run of sockeye salmon鈥攁 dwindling species that鈥檚 emblematic of the Pacific Northwest鈥攊n a century, possibly due to an injection of nutrients into the ocean from a volcanic eruption. Although sockeyes spend most of their lives in the ocean, they swim up freshwater streams to lay their eggs. The different environment triggers a shift in their metabolism, and causes their skin to change from silver to vibrant red and green. Standing waist-deep in a stream, Hall took shot after shot of the spawning fish while they swam around his legs.

Some of hall鈥檚 shots include both land and water, giving his subjects and their environment context. 鈥淚t is beautiful up there, both above water and below,鈥 he says. His subjects are thus surrounded by evergreens, often silhouetted in the distance. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 one of the things that I wanted to do: Give people a sense of how the land and sea are connected,鈥 he says.

Hall鈥檚 work also makes a case for conservation. About 99 percent of underwater photography is taken in warm waters, he estimates, where colorful corals and fish flourish, so viewers aren鈥檛 as connected to their colder counterparts.

鈥淧eople protect what they know and value, and wildlife photography has a very important role in that,鈥 says Hall. 鈥淚 think that people don鈥檛 realize the value of what鈥檚 out there in cold water and how these ecosystems are just as fragile as any.鈥