The reef`s uninhibited and unrelenting beauty At once spiritual and

Penn State professor
and administrator Jeremy Cohen
has spent nearly 45 years
falling in love with, and photographing,
A world of beauty that most
of us have never seen.
Bigfin reef squid,
Komodo Island, Indonesia
The reef’s uninhibited and
unrelenting beauty
At once spiritual and physical
Holds us in her spell
Unexpected and awakening
A lifelong lover, companion, and friend to
Appreciate for her unimaginable embrace
Coral polyps extend their fingers in gathering dusk
Feeding on tiny plankton
Crinoids, arms spread in the warm
South-of-the-Equator Pacific
Dance in the current
A rejuvenating,
Suggestive
Eternal kiss
—Jeremy Cohen
Anthias on soft-coral polyps, Fiji
an
Undersea Garden
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Bull shark, Beqa Lagoon, Fiji
Coral and anemonefish, Indonesia
Clark’s anemonefish and sea sponges, Indonesia
“A BuLL SHARK IS one of the shark species that people should be very concerned
about. They’re man-eaters, though we’re not part of their normal diet. I had a safety
diver with me—a Fijian man, a big man—and as we went down, he told me, ‘Don’t
even worry about them. I just want you to shoot pictures. I’ll keep you safe.’ He had a
metal shepherd’s crook, and he planted himself right behind my head. He’d let them
get very close so I could shoot photos, and then he’d shoo them away.”
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“the key to underwater photography
is being a good diver, so you
have complete control over your
buoyancy. With the currents,
it can be a washing machine
down there. And if you touch
the bottom with your fin, you
kick up all that sediment, which
your flash picks up, and it
looks like it’s snowing. So you
become completely motionless,
learn to sway with the current,
and let the fish get used to you.
Sometimes I’ll spend a half hour
floating off the bottom, waiting
for one fish, before it realizes
I’m not going to eat it.”
Gorgonian sea fan, Bligh Waters, Fiji
Cushion star on sponge, Galapagos
Anthias on coral, Bligh Waters, Fiji
White-eyed moray eels, Indonesia
“ONLY TWO FISH HAVE BITTEN ME in 45 years of diving. One was a damselfish—I felt
this thing on my neck and I looked, and it was maybe two inches long. It just kept attacking me,
as if to say, ‘Get away from my nest!’ Here I am, 5-foot-11, and here’s this two-inch creature guarding
her nest from me. It was wonderful.”
p h oto c r e d i t s h e r e
Sea lion, Galapagos
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“SEA ANEMONE ARE POISONOUS to most fish—except to the anemonefish.
The anemonefish have built up a tolerance to the poison over the generations. So they
live inside the tentacles of the anemone, and other fish can’t come after them in
there, because they’d be stung by the anemone’s little stingers.”
Dragonet, Indonesia
Unknown, Indonesia
Scalloped hammerhead shark, Galapagos
Flabellina rubrolineata, Indonesia
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Red Gorgonian sea fans, Fiji
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Anemonefish and anemone,
Komodo Island, Indonesia
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Nembrotha cristata nudibranch and blue tunicates, Indonesia
Threespot humbugs, Indonesia
“ONE OF THE THINGS I LOVE about taking images
underwater is that when you’re down there, you don’t know what
you have. Things are moving too quickly. So I bring the images to
the surface, and months later I’m still looking the creatures up and
reading about them. I have a roomful of field guides at home, and
one of my favorite things to do is spend time with them. An hour
underwater becomes weeks of just looking up each of these.”
Pink anemonefish, Fiji
Sea anemone
p h oto c r e d i t s h e r e
ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHER
Jeremy Cohen grew up in southern
California, where he started
snorkeling in the tide pools off the
coast. He earned his Ph.D. at the
University of Washington and today
is associate vice president and
senior associate dean for undergraduate education at Penn State.
He is an avid scuba diver and
underwater photographer and with
his wife, Catherine, has explored
thousands of reefs worldwide.
Cohen serves on the Dive Safety
Board for Penn State’s Science
Diving Program, which ensures the
safety of faculty and student research
that takes place underwater.
Scorpionfish, Indonesia
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