This photographer has been diving with sharks for decades

Do you think of sharks as beautiful animals? Photographer Brian Skerry does.

A National Geographic photographer for 20 years, Skerry started diving at age 15 and mostly does underwater shoots. His new book, simply titled “SHARK,” has photos from his two decades of capturing images of sharks, ranging from his early work to his recent dives.

Skerry joined Friday’s “The Morning Blaze with Doc Thompson” to talk about the moment that first drew him to sharks as well as why he always uses a cage when he goes underwater to snap the infamous great white.

The photographer encountered his first shark when he was 20, spotting a female blue shark during a dive. “I saw this animal that was absolutely beautiful,” he remembered, explaining that sharks are the “perfect” photo subject because their movements through the water are both powerful and graceful.

While sharks are seen as one-dimensional killers, “they’re very complex animals”  in reality, Skerry asserted. As a top-tier predator, sharks are essential for the ocean’s ecosystem. Around 100 million sharks are estimated to be killed each year, and the damage to an essential ocean predator affects the entire environment.

To see more from Doc, visit his channel on TheBlaze and listen live to “The Morning Blaze with Doc Thompson” weekdays 6–9 a.m. ET, only on TheBlaze Radio Network.