Patterns In The Deep

Some encounters become photographs almost immediately. Others take a little more patience.

During a dive in South Malé Atoll, I spent several minutes swimming alongside this ocellated eagle ray, keeping my distance and allowing it to become comfortable with my presence.

From above, its form became almost abstract. The symmetry of the wings, the darkness of its back and hundreds of white markings scattered across it like stars made the animal seem suspended against the blue.

It was that pattern that held my attention. Something unmistakably wild, yet almost impossibly precise.

Patterns in the Deep is a photograph about one of the things I find most fascinating beneath the surface - the extraordinary detail hidden within animals we can so easily pass by.