Mako: Phantom of the Sea
Naturalist, artist and award-winning cinematographer Joe Romeiro captures unique still images of the world’s fastest shark while freediving. Makos have occupied a unique space in Joe’s heart, and after all these years of filming and photographing them, he continues to push the limits of mako imagery
I remember my first mako shark off Rhode Island, around 12 years ago. It was a small animal, a tiny mako that was screaming around. At first, I thought it was just an ordinary fish because it was a baby, but then I got a better look and I saw this miniature shark that looked like a great white, but it was only a couple of feet long! I fell in love with that shark that day.
I’ve always been on the water since I was a little kid and it was kind of natural that it would evolve into what it is today. I have been shooting professionally now for close to a decade, and now I’m shooting for Shark Week, National Geographic and the BBC quite regularly. I recently did a shoot with Will Smith! I feel like I have achieved a lot of things in my life and done a lot of things in my life and there is this animal that has been kind of riding – at least in my mind – alongside me throughout the whole thing. All of these great things have happened in my life but the mako shark has always been there, a part of it all.
Till this point, I have been involved in filming makos for about five or six TV shows about them. We have filmed them in New Zealand, off of California, as well as Baja in Mexico, off Texas, and of course, just off the coast of my home in Rhode Island. I have yet to make it to South Africa or Australia but they are there. They are thought to be one of those animals that are so widespread, they are in all oceans just about everywhere in temperate waters. And that’s kind of where the problem starts because it’s so hard to protect an animal that is distributed globally across so many international borders.
Makos are thought to be one of those animals that are so widespread, they are in all oceans just about everywhere in temperate waters
Although because we can protect makos off of Rhode Island or in US waters, those animals go off where they will have no protection. Now we are focused on bringing together international groups and research organisations to try to get this animal really protected properly. That group of people is just now coming together, and we are starting to be more of a collective voice, which is the important thing because that’s what’s going to be able to start international policies.
RAINBOW SKIN
Out of around 440 species, there are only five sharks that are endothermic, and what I mean by that is they’re almost warm-blooded. This really is the best way to describe them. All five species are relatives of the great white, and all of them come to this area around Rhode Island, where
I live. Everyone knows what makes the mako shark so special is that it’s the fastest shark in the world. But there is more to them than that. There is something that is just more carnal about mako sharks, more primitive in a way. They eat sea lions and dolphins, even billfish – huge 200-kilogram fish with swords on their faces. How do you not have respect for an animal like that?
Despite this fearsome ability, when you see a mako, it’s not terrifying. It’s this rainbow-coloured shimmering effect that is just an amazing combination. Every different angle has a different colour. It’s not like any other shark. It has a living kind of skin to it, like a rainbow. And that’s what I wanted to capture with these shots. But when you see a dead version of it, it loses that colour. It loses that effect.
ART AT SEA
Video aside, with my photography
I’ve been trying to play around with techniques more. Nowadays, there are all sorts of apps that will influence different light levels in your images. So these images are a combination of exposure bracketing as well as high dynamic range (HDR) treatments. For me, it’s a matter of controlling the light levels of three different images that are going to be laid over one another. Based on early results, I identify areas that need light and then I will play with
that in the field. But my approach with this is try to make it feel more like art, rather than just photographic documentation. The bottom line is these images are not manipulated or augmented. It’s about trying to pull out those details and that colour that is contained there in the digital information, and you might see it when you’re underwater but it’s just a shimmer. You often hear about the rules of underwater photography that you supposedly can’t break, but for me, those rules are quite meaningless. If it looks good, it looks good – and that’s it! So for me as an artist when I am painting I want to show the best colours in the best light. And that’s what I am after in these shots.
LIGHTING A GHOST
With fast-moving sharks, you have to use fast shutter speeds. But the real challenge is your lighting, figuring out how high or low to position your strobes. The difficult part is that you are essentially trying to shoot a silvercoloured fish. It’s like photographing the shiniest and fastest thing you can imagine, like a knife being thrown at you. It’s so shiny it’s reminiscent of chrome, almost like you can see your reflection in it. But then all these blues and different colours come out and when you throw a strobe on that it has such a way of reflecting that light.So keeping a lid on that is the challenge.
It’s so easy to blow out the colours completely because it’s so reflective, but it’s more to do with the angle. You can dump tonnes of light from above but as soon as you hit it from the side you will blow out your colours. Then things get even more complicated with bursts up to 74 km/h (46 mph), passing by you quick and shiny like a bullet, and with this huge array of teeth right in the front where it swings around, testing you. It’s best not to think about it, but it is their habit to bite things to test them to see if they want to eat it. So there is that to contend with. But also, they tend to get bored quickly and move on quickly, so your window to get a shot is small. The mako is there and then it’s gone like a ghost, literally a phantom of the sea. Every time I see one I feel so lucky to have that in my life, to have that opportunity. I don’t have anything else in my life that feels like that.
MAKOS IN DANGER
People always find that special kind of music, or favourite food, that they enjoy. For me, my favourite kind of music is the mako shark! It’s that one, out of a huge cast of ocean characters, that’s the one that I identify with more than any. It’s like this lightning bolt that you can’t catch. For me,
I have gone from this kid who loves sharks to finding a way to work with them and film them. But now, things have changed.
Catch limits have recently increased, allowing fishing of mako sharks of larger and larger sizes. That means, in all likelihood, that smaller sharks are being fished out, and now we are going after the mature animals that support the population. The result is that both the more common shortfin mako and the rare longfin mako are both now classified as “Endangered” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List.
Once we saw catch limits going up, we knew we had to start our own non-profit. The Atlantic Shark Institute focuses on pelagic sharks, like blues and makos. And now we have started working with universities, government
agencies, as well as advisory groups. We are just starting to have this amazing collective that can speak with one voice but also have the research and data to back it up. I personally have acquired a 46-foot (14-metre) research vessel called the RV Warfish, all decked out with the bells and whistles that you need for research, so I’m going to be supporting a lot of projects with researchers, as well as media and filming projects. Anything we can do with the sharks to help promote and study them is so important now, and I’m just happy to be a part of all this, moving shark conversation forward to where it needs to be.