The world’s oceans are full of life and interesting species. But they’re also threatened and, in some ways, misunderstood.
Andy Mann, an ocean conservationist and a photographer and filmmaker for National Geographic Magazine, is trying to bridge that gap between understanding what’s happening under the water and making sure it can continue.
Mann will be speaking tonight at Mesa Arts Center as part of the National Geographic Live series – his talk is called "From Summit to Sea." He joined The Show to talk about why the oceans interests him.
Full conversation
ANDY MANN: I grew up in the Chesapeake Bay of Virginia. So I always had a love for the water. And the more time I spent in the water, the more I saw it change, I've always had a passion for photography and filmmaking. So when I combined the two, I found purpose in my work and that's the path I've been on.
MARK BRODIE: What kinds of changes have you noticed?
MANN: I've noticed a lot of changes. I've seen our coral reefs start deplete. I've seen fish abundance and biodiversity go down in the 15 years that I've been diving, and I've seen the conversations and community engagement go up. So we're at a very critical time right now for our oceans.
BRODIE: What are those conversations like, like when you speak with people or just, you know, have events like what you're going to be having here in Mesa, what are the conversations like about what's going on in our oceans and seas and what needs to happen?
MANN: Yeah. You know, I like to say there's this thin blue line that separates people from the ocean. I mean, without storytellers, without photographers and filmmakers, no one would even know what's happening out in the open ocean. You know, we think it's this endless, abundant resource but it's not, it's delicate and very fragile. And my job is to give a voice to the voiceless.
These animals, they don't have a voice, and so it's my job to, to bring their stories to people and, and start these conversations and those conversations range anything from like, “oh my gosh, I had no idea how beautiful this species was” to “wow, I see the impact story you're telling, what can I do to be involved?”
BRODIE: What worries you the most about what you've been seeing?
MANN: I think the greatest threat our oceans face is apathy. You know, like I said, these animals, they don't have a voice, you know, and it's, it's, it's my job to, to bring those stories to people and to engage people to, to bring whatever is in their basket, whatever they do, you know, bring it to the, to the environmental movement because we just need as many ambassadors, ambassadors as we can get.
BRODIE: What is it like for you to do the diving and do the kind of underwater photography you do?
MANN: My work is so thrilling. Mark. It changes. No two days are ever the same. There's some days I go out on the boat and, and we're searching all day for whales or sharks or fish or whatever that the natural history subject is. We're trying to film and then there's some days where it's just, you know, the magic of the oceans unlock and, and you're the only person in the water in this like incredible event and you know, every day is different and you just can expect the unexpected out there.
BRODIE: Well, how do you try to deal with that? Because obviously you're trying to tell the story of what is actually happening under the water but I would imagine when you go in there, you kind of have a sense, at least to some extent of what you might expect.
MANN: Yeah, totally. And it's all perspective. I mean, like you could dive a healthy coral reef like one square meter of coral reef and if it's healthy, you'll never see all the life that's in that one square meter, you know. So, you know, you have to make a choice when you get in the water as a filmmaker, do you want to put on a macro lens and focus on the tiniest little subjects because they're incredibly valuable and as interesting and charismatic as the large megafauna.
Or do you want to put on a wide angle lens and sort of tell that bigger, wider story of, of some of the bigger what I like to call charismatic megafauna, those whales and sharks and things that, that people really do connect to. So you make the choice, you stick with it. You go down, you learn, you get inspired and you, and you try to make as many wonderful images as you can.
BRODIE: Have you had instances where you have been filming something and it really, really has not gone the way that you've expected, and I don't know if you've been in, in dangerous situations or just something has kind of gone awry that, that you kind of had to think on the fly, oh my gosh, what am I going to do here?
MANN: There has been those situations. Yeah. You know, you can find yourself, you know, and just ripping cur unexpected ripping current. You know, where it's almost impossible to film or, or even have a safe dive. There's other divers in the water. You know, for me, I'm, I'm hyper focused on my environment trying to chase a shot. And there's oftentimes I'm with another group of divers that doesn't have the same attention to detail.
So I'm always looking around me to make sure I can see everybody that our group is together and, you know, like big large sharks, whales. These, these animals are really unpredictable and so you gotta think on your feet. But, you know, that's sort of like an intuition you, you get, after all these years.
BRODIE: I would think because some of those animals are really, really big and really, really heavy and I would think you would want to sort of for lack of a better word, stay on their good side or stay out of their way.
MANN: It's true. Yeah, I have this thing, I call Kodak courage and I don't know if it's because I have, I have a large camera, like my camera is quite big, you know, it's got a big glass dome port, it's made of metal, it is heavy and large and, you know, but I, I want the sharks, I want the animals to be right up inches from that dome port because I want people to connect with the image.
You know, I want them to open the pages of National Geographic and feel an emotional connection to that species to that image. So that requires me working in close distances. But like I said , I feel safe behind the camera. I've only done a few dives in my entire career without a camera and I felt so much more vulnerable than if I had one.
BRODIE: That's so interesting. I mean, because obviously, like, if, if an animal wants to get to you, a camera is not going to protect you. It's so interesting that it gives you that, that sense of that feeling of safety.
MANN: It does. I mean, most of these animals are misunderstood, you know, especially in these ocean environments where, like you both have eyes on each other and that element of surprise is gone. Mostly you're just working in a scenario where there's a curiosity between the animal and myself, you know, and so you're sort of doing this dance and time slows down and I've taken so many people diving with sharks for the first time and that sense of fear turns into a sense of excitement just immediately.
BRODIE: Huh. Is there anywhere that you really would love to, to dive in film that you haven't yet had a chance to do it?
MANN: I've been lucky to have, you know, gone diving on all seven continents and there's, you know, there are, there are a few places here and there, there's a couple like natural history events that happen all over the world that are incredibly rare.
And so those are kind of like the things that I really strive to be lucky enough to, to see like, like a bait ball, for instance, you know, where there's like a big group of sardines and all of a sudden it only lasts like three minutes, but you have hundreds of sharks, hundreds of tunas, you have thousands of birds die bombing from the air. And then three minutes later, all you see is just the shimmer of, of sardine scales just going to the bottom. There's nothing left and those events are really rare. But, wow, you see the images from those. And, yeah, I'm, I'm really jealous of anyone that's gotten to really film a big bait ball.
BRODIE: Yeah, I can imagine.
