Brian Skerry's story behind this photo.
"A few years ago, I was in New Zealand photographing a story about the value of marine reserves (a type of marine protected area). My last location was a place called the Poor Knights Islands, a spectacular group of small, rocky islands off the North Island of New Zealand, which had been fully protected as a no-take zone in the 1980’s.
One afternoon I was invited to have tea with an old-time diver named Wade Doak, who was somewhat of a legend in those parts. Over tea, Wade told me that he believed the marine life was better at Poor Knights today than when he was diving there in the 1950’s.
Everywhere I travel I am told, “You should have been here ten years ago, there were more fish.” But I found myself in a place that is actually better today than it was sixty years ago, simply because they left it alone thirty years ago. So I wanted to make a picture that I envisioned as the “primal ocean” that spoke to this resilience. I wanted it to be a picture that might give a feeling for how the ocean looked hundreds of years ago to instantly show readers the value of conservation.
To read more about this National Geographic photographer's visit to New Zealand, click here.