What do you think?
Rate this book
Shark
Get closer to the beauty and power of sharks with award-winning National Geographic photographer Brian Skerry as he illustrates their remarkable evolutionary adaptations and their huge importance to marine ecosystems around the world.
For decades, acclaimed underwater photographer Brian Skerry has braved ocean depths and the jaws of predatory giants to capture the most remarkable photographs of sharks around the world. In this collection of the best of those pictures, Skerry draws on his growing personal respect for these animals to share intimate stories of their impact. Focusing on four key species--great white, whitetip, tiger, and mako sharks--Skerry's photographs span from his early work, photographing them from cages, to his recent unencumbered scuba dives. With additional text by top National Geographic writers, Skerry's images and stories encourage a change in attitude toward these top predators, ultimately showing how they are the keys to the healthy balance of nature underwater.
For decades, acclaimed underwater photographer Brian Skerry has braved ocean depths and the jaws of predatory giants to capture the most remarkable photographs of sharks around the world. In this collection of the best of those pictures, Skerry draws on his growing personal respect for these animals to share intimate stories of their impact. Focusing on four key species--great white, whitetip, tiger, and mako sharks--Skerry's photographs span from his early work, photographing them from cages, to his recent unencumbered scuba dives. With additional text by top National Geographic writers, Skerry's images and stories encourage a change in attitude toward these top predators, ultimately showing how they are the keys to the healthy balance of nature underwater.
208 pages, Hardcover
Published June 13, 2017
4 people are currently reading
131 people want to read
About the author
Brian Skerry
23 books53 followersBrian Skerry is a photojournalist and visual storyteller specializing in marine wildlife and underwater environments. Since 1998 he has been a contributing photographer for National Geographic Magazine covering stories on every continent and in nearly every ocean habitat. In 2014 he was named as a National Geographic Society PhotographyFellow and then named a National Geographic Society Storytelling Fellow in 2017. In 2017 he was also awarded the title of Rolex National Geographic Explorer of the Year.
For National Geographic Magazine, Brian has produced a wide range of stories, from the harp seal’s struggle to survive in frozen waters to the alarming decrease in the world’s fisheries to dolphin intelligence, all cover stories. A fourth cover story, in February 2017 focused on protecting ocean ecosystems in US waters and during this coverage Brian produced the first images of a sitting US President underwater. He is currently at work on his 29th story for NGM.
Brian’s work has also been featured in publications such as The NY Times, TheWashington Post, Paris Match, Esquire, and Audubon. He is the author of 12 books including the acclaimed monographs Ocean Soul and SHARK. His latest book, Secrets of the Whales will be released in April 2021 by National Geographic as part of a multiplatform project he created that includes a cover story in National Geographic magazineand a 4-part documentary filmseries on Disney +.
Brian is an 11-time award winner in the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition and has also been recognized with awards from Pictures of the Year International, Nature’s Best and Communication Arts. He the only photographer to win the coveted Peter Benchley Award for Excellence in Media. In 2010 National Geographic magazine named one of Brian’s images among their 50 Greatest Photographs of All Time and in 2016 he was awarded the National Geographic Photographer’s PhotographerAward, an honor bestowed by his colleagues, other National Geographic photographers. The Academy of Underwater Arts and Sciences awarded Brian the 2019 NOGI Award for Arts, an award frequently referred to as the ‘Underwater Oscar’ and in 2020 he received the President’s Award from the Conservation Law Foundation.
Brian frequently lectures on ocean exploration, storytelling and conservation having presented at venues such as The United Nations General Assembly, The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, TED Talks, The National Press Club in Washington, DC, The Royal Geographical Society in London and the Sydney Opera House in Australia.
He has had numerous solo photographer exhibits including Portraits of Planet Ocean, a two-year exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC and Ocean Soul at Visa pour l’image in Perpignan, France. Other exhibits of his work have been held in cities worldwide including Geneva, Barcelona, Lisbon, and Shanghai. Brian is the Explorer-In-Residence and a Trustee at the New England Aquarium, a founding member of the International League of Conservation Photographers and a Fellow National of The Explorers Club. He also serves as a Nikon Ambassador.
For National Geographic Magazine, Brian has produced a wide range of stories, from the harp seal’s struggle to survive in frozen waters to the alarming decrease in the world’s fisheries to dolphin intelligence, all cover stories. A fourth cover story, in February 2017 focused on protecting ocean ecosystems in US waters and during this coverage Brian produced the first images of a sitting US President underwater. He is currently at work on his 29th story for NGM.
Brian’s work has also been featured in publications such as The NY Times, TheWashington Post, Paris Match, Esquire, and Audubon. He is the author of 12 books including the acclaimed monographs Ocean Soul and SHARK. His latest book, Secrets of the Whales will be released in April 2021 by National Geographic as part of a multiplatform project he created that includes a cover story in National Geographic magazineand a 4-part documentary filmseries on Disney +.
Brian is an 11-time award winner in the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition and has also been recognized with awards from Pictures of the Year International, Nature’s Best and Communication Arts. He the only photographer to win the coveted Peter Benchley Award for Excellence in Media. In 2010 National Geographic magazine named one of Brian’s images among their 50 Greatest Photographs of All Time and in 2016 he was awarded the National Geographic Photographer’s PhotographerAward, an honor bestowed by his colleagues, other National Geographic photographers. The Academy of Underwater Arts and Sciences awarded Brian the 2019 NOGI Award for Arts, an award frequently referred to as the ‘Underwater Oscar’ and in 2020 he received the President’s Award from the Conservation Law Foundation.
Brian frequently lectures on ocean exploration, storytelling and conservation having presented at venues such as The United Nations General Assembly, The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, TED Talks, The National Press Club in Washington, DC, The Royal Geographical Society in London and the Sydney Opera House in Australia.
He has had numerous solo photographer exhibits including Portraits of Planet Ocean, a two-year exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC and Ocean Soul at Visa pour l’image in Perpignan, France. Other exhibits of his work have been held in cities worldwide including Geneva, Barcelona, Lisbon, and Shanghai. Brian is the Explorer-In-Residence and a Trustee at the New England Aquarium, a founding member of the International League of Conservation Photographers and a Fellow National of The Explorers Club. He also serves as a Nikon Ambassador.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
November 11, 2017
This is a great book! Skerry shares wonderful stories and experiences he and others have had with sharks, and the accompanying photography is out of this world! He sets the record straight with Shark - you'll learn something and will have a lot to turn over in your head. Absolutely going to read again, and I would highly recommend this read whether you like sharks or not.
August 6, 2019
As a shark lover, I read as much as I can about sharks and the oceans. The information in the book was Interesting. Sharks are creatures of the sea that must be respected as they have been on earth longer than humans. I loved the photographs of the sharks, corals, and the ocean. Well done. A++++
October 20, 2019
This book is amazing and made me cry and I love sharks now. Fuck kill tournaments. Fuck the fishing industry.
January 15, 2020
"USA Today called the shark 'monstrous' and described the fishermen as 'brave souls' . When I got home from Hawaii,I looked at the story again. Seeing the picture of the gutted,deflated shark on the dock,I thought about how it was once the same size as Sophie,and those weren't at all the words that came to mind - for either the shark or the men who killed it."
His view of sharks is quite beautiful and I think he's right. Sharks aren't monsters and we ought to stop looking at them that way. I mean,what right do we have as human beings to tag them as such? He makes us think about it.
And the photographs of the sharks are stunning! My favourites are the Basking Shark and the Whale Shark.
His view of sharks is quite beautiful and I think he's right. Sharks aren't monsters and we ought to stop looking at them that way. I mean,what right do we have as human beings to tag them as such? He makes us think about it.
And the photographs of the sharks are stunning! My favourites are the Basking Shark and the Whale Shark.
August 16, 2020
Read this for Shark Week 2020. The photography is breathtaking. Great informative bits. It's so important, especially now, to stop being controlled by negative feelings and follow the facts. I love how Skerry stressed the importance of facts. End finning. Somehow I feel Sharks are working their way back.
July 31, 2017
Absolutely beautiful collection of photos and stories about the most elegant and fearsome, anthropomorphizing them cautiously. While emphasizing their power and wildness, Skerry displays their personalities to a fantastic degree.
May 12, 2018
Loved this. Although it is a coffee table style book with large photos I just read it cover to cover. A perfect combination of the best parts of Shark Week and environmental literacy. Can't wait to meet Brian in a few weeks at a photo workshop.
December 29, 2017
A truly ethereal view of the majestic shark
October 5, 2019
Interesting and informative essays and some absolutely beautiful photos.
August 3, 2023
This coffee table book has many shark photos from throughout the acclaimed underwater photographer Brian Skerry's career. The book is structured around chapters focusing on Great White, Tiger, Shortfin Mako, and Oceanic Whitetip sharks that are bookended by introductory and conclusion chapters. National Geographic (NatGeo) journalists Glenn Hodges and Erik Vance contribute chapter content as well as Skerry, with Skerry being the official editor.
There are great and powerful photos in here, but the writing style is more for those at the high school reading level and above rather than at the middle school level. This was also published in 2017, so although it's a great starting point, shark enthusiasts will then need to search elsewhere to access the most updated species listing, fishing regulation, and conservation effort information. Which is a good thing! Just important to recognize a book's limitation; this cannot be your only source by which you try to understand these sharks.
I LOVE the full 2 page infographic spread, featuring a SCUBA diver and 13 sharks, complete with size and tooth shape references, scientific names, species status, diet preferences, a cladogram with morphological traits that reveal how different shark types are related, as well as water column depth ranges to their habitat distributions. What a nexus of art and information! That spread needs to be printed on a larger scale and displayed for every shark enthusiast's quick reference. Best part of the whole book.
This book has extremely important messaging, but as someone who has worked in the publishing industry, I could tell that this took low levels of effort to produce. Many of the photo descriptions are repetitive, implying there was little attention given to the order or rad-through effect these images have on the overall work before the manuscript was sent to print. Glenn Hodges and Erik Vance's chapters had previously been published as NatGeo magazine articles, so were they even involved in putting this product together and do they receive any royalties from its success, or is this NatGeo capitalizing on what shark content they already had copyright permissions to reprint? It's 2023 and NatGeo still seems to be more science and conservation forward in its shark content than the Discovery Channel, but I will be keeping a very scrutinous eye on their messaging because I care a LOT about the ethical study of and advocacy for sharks.
There are great and powerful photos in here, but the writing style is more for those at the high school reading level and above rather than at the middle school level. This was also published in 2017, so although it's a great starting point, shark enthusiasts will then need to search elsewhere to access the most updated species listing, fishing regulation, and conservation effort information. Which is a good thing! Just important to recognize a book's limitation; this cannot be your only source by which you try to understand these sharks.
I LOVE the full 2 page infographic spread, featuring a SCUBA diver and 13 sharks, complete with size and tooth shape references, scientific names, species status, diet preferences, a cladogram with morphological traits that reveal how different shark types are related, as well as water column depth ranges to their habitat distributions. What a nexus of art and information! That spread needs to be printed on a larger scale and displayed for every shark enthusiast's quick reference. Best part of the whole book.
This book has extremely important messaging, but as someone who has worked in the publishing industry, I could tell that this took low levels of effort to produce. Many of the photo descriptions are repetitive, implying there was little attention given to the order or rad-through effect these images have on the overall work before the manuscript was sent to print. Glenn Hodges and Erik Vance's chapters had previously been published as NatGeo magazine articles, so were they even involved in putting this product together and do they receive any royalties from its success, or is this NatGeo capitalizing on what shark content they already had copyright permissions to reprint? It's 2023 and NatGeo still seems to be more science and conservation forward in its shark content than the Discovery Channel, but I will be keeping a very scrutinous eye on their messaging because I care a LOT about the ethical study of and advocacy for sharks.
July 3, 2023
I think this is a good exploratory book for people who are just developing an interest/passion for sharks. It certainly opens the eyes to the pressure facing shark populations.
As someone who is already a shark nerd/has had some experience with sharks (shark dives, interning in a shark lab) it was an interesting way for me to refine a passion. It was certainly cool to also see the mention of the lab I used to intern with.
I also very quickly realized I had a shark problem as early on from a photograph I was able to identify a shark species from a closeup of the mouth. And the sad part is I did if from the pigmentation rather than the dentition (which is a massive giveaway of the species). For those of you wondering the species it was a tiger shark.
I did find one factually error and it was in relation to the Greenland shark which was stated as living about a hundred years. Member of this species have been ages over 400 years… older than America.
I did also love that many of the pictures were blurry and chaotic. As someone who loves to dive and is an amateur underwater photographer, I know how easy it is to end up with a blurry photo. But in this book I found it added a… patina to sharks. Like they cannot be captured, even on film. To experience them it must be first hand.
As someone who is already a shark nerd/has had some experience with sharks (shark dives, interning in a shark lab) it was an interesting way for me to refine a passion. It was certainly cool to also see the mention of the lab I used to intern with.
I also very quickly realized I had a shark problem as early on from a photograph I was able to identify a shark species from a closeup of the mouth. And the sad part is I did if from the pigmentation rather than the dentition (which is a massive giveaway of the species). For those of you wondering the species it was a tiger shark.
I did find one factually error and it was in relation to the Greenland shark which was stated as living about a hundred years. Member of this species have been ages over 400 years… older than America.
I did also love that many of the pictures were blurry and chaotic. As someone who loves to dive and is an amateur underwater photographer, I know how easy it is to end up with a blurry photo. But in this book I found it added a… patina to sharks. Like they cannot be captured, even on film. To experience them it must be first hand.
October 31, 2024
This is what I would consider a coffee table book. This book is mostly full of photographs that take up the entire page but there are also pages with massive amounts of text. I did not read all the text, but I did take a quick look at all the photos. Toward the end of the book, Skerry talks about people hunting sharks for sport as well as sharks being "broken down for parts." Although Skerry is discouraging these practices, the photos included are uncomfortable for more sensitive souls like myself.
February 22, 2024
Brian Sherry’s work is absolutely unbelievable. Truly in awe of the photography he has captured and been able to share in this book. Great read and I actually would even suggest reading with an older elementary school child because the book does not have any photos that may be scary for a kid to view. Great information about each shark he put in this book, but also lots of information on conservation for these beautiful animals. Loved this.
April 8, 2024
A wonderful book on sharks written by someone who loves them, so there's no demonizing or describing them as aggressive monsters. You can feel the enthusiasm the author has for sharks through his writing, with this and the color photos it's the best book on sharks I've read!
December 19, 2022
While it contains some outdated information, this book is a great introduction to some shark species, and the photographs are gorgeous!
December 25, 2023
Fin-tastic ! I absolutely love this book. All the photograps are so beautifull and tell such an important story . 🦈
July 26, 2017
The book is about the photographer's journey and appreciation of sharks. I wanted more biology. Beautiful photographs though.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews