A great white shark swims past a dive cage off Mexico’s Guadalupe Island in November 2015.

Sea creatures ready for their close-up

Photographs by Ben Lowy
Story by Kyle Almond, CNN

A great white shark swims past a dive cage off Mexico’s Guadalupe Island in November 2015.

When Ben Lowy starts something, he jumps right into the deep end.

The award-winning photographer began his career in a war zone, covering Iraq in 2003.

And for his first underwater assignment, he went face to face with great white sharks.

“You see them, and this little reptilian part of your brain is like, ‘You need to get out of the water right now,’ ” Lowy said.

A great white shark crashes into the sea after attempting to grab some bait in September 2017. “When you see these creatures — even small sharks — you're just like wow,” Lowy said. “Because they’re these perfect predators, at the top of the food chain.”

Ian Urbina, a reporter with The New York Times, dives in Jellyfish Lake, which is on Eil Malk, an island in Palau. Lowy was with him on assignment. There aren’t any predators in the saltwater lake, which is safe for snorkeling and swimming except for the layer of hydrogen sulfide about 50 feet deep. The jellyfish here sting, but they’re too small to be felt by humans.

On land, you can use a long lens and get a great photo while keeping your distance from dangerous animals such as lions or bears.

Not in the water.

“With underwater photography, you get really close. You have to,” Lowy said. “I'm using a 12-millimeter lens. I'm right on that because after about 15 feet, there's nothing but blue, you don't get any color.

“Everything is shot between super on top of my camera to maybe 5 to 10 feet away. No one does that with a lion.”

A great white launches from the sea to grab some bait. “With underwater work, I take myself out of the equation,” Lowy said. “I don’t have to speak to people, I don’t have to ask permission. I aim to be present, to test my abilities, to capture what happens in front of me.”

“A diving friend introduced me to this isolated and friendly sea lion colony, and another world was opened to me,” Lowy said of this shot, which was taken off Mexico’s Holy Spirit Island in May 2017. He said sea lions will bark at you underwater, and young ones have chewed on him and his gear.

Divers use protective cages to shield themselves from great white sharks. But that doesn’t make seeing one any less terrifying.

“I can have the best camera housing, the best scuba gear, and ultimately you’re still basically prey for whatever it wants to do,” Lowy said.

Since 2015, Lowy has been throwing himself more into underwater photography. He was getting burnt out from covering war and politics, and needed a new outlet.

“For years, all I wanted to do was be a conflict photographer and social-issue photographer and really document the things I felt like people were too apathetic to witness or care about,” he said. “But there is more to the world than that.”

Lowy holds hands with his son, Mateo, as they swim alongside a whale shark in Oslob, Philippines. “My family and I made a monthlong trip to the Philippines, introducing our kids to their mother's country of birth,” Lowy said. “We also took the time to swim with as many creatures as possible, inspiring our children to be curious.”

A green turtle swims in the shallow, reef-filled waters of Apo Island in the Philippines.

In addition to great whites off Mexico’s Guadalupe Island, Lowy has photographed marine life off the coast of Cuba and various island nations in the Pacific. He’s dove with jellyfish, sea lions, turtles and crocodiles.

There’s an adrenaline rush that comes with the adventures, but it’s also relaxing, Lowy said.

“It's almost like sensory deprivation. You're just floating in the water doing something physical and then have a split second to make an image. It is very different from the other aspects of photography that I know.”

“The gaping maw of a gigantic whale shark, replete with hovering bait fish, was one of the most transcendent dives I have ever been on,” Lowy said of this shot, taken in the Philippines in August 2016. “I floated in the sea, my wife and child at my side, spending hours swimming with this one feeding, peaceful creature.”

Sharks swim in the Gardens of the Queen, a marine reserve in Cuba, in June 2016. Lowy said the reef allows only about 1,000 divers a year.

Lowy is open about his post-traumatic stress disorder, which he said started after a series of bomb blasts in Iraq in 2007.

The water offers him an escape, freedom from the outside world.

It also allows him to be closer to his family. His wife, Marvi Lacar, joins him on his underwater shoots, and his oldest son, 8-year-old Mateo, has gone snorkeling with them.

“My kids are young, and I'm trying to see the world the way they do,” Lowy said. “They've influenced me to look at things that are maybe not as horrible as where I started my career, and to sort of appreciate the wonder of the world.”

A school of fish swims in Cuba’s Gardens of the Queen. “There is an entire new world to challenge myself to learn about, trying to ID all the different fish in the sea,” Lowy said.

Lowy’s wife, Marvi, and their oldest son, Mateo, float above him in August 2016. “I spent months away from my family,” he said. “Traveling for work. Sometimes going to dangerous places, sometimes out-of-the-way places. … This was the first time I realized that we could, as a family, travel and explore and photograph together. I could be a better dad and a better husband and still be creative and adventurous.”

Ben Lowy is a photographer based in New York. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter.

Photo editor: Brett Roegiers