Eels, in an early life stage called leptocephalus, drift with the plankton, eating tiny invertebrates and fish. Shot using scuba, at night, while drifting with the plankton, out over the deep abyss. #eel #leptocephalus #larvalfish #blackwater #blackwaterdiving

#Squid squirt #ink for all sorts of reasons. Here, an unexpected slam into me in the pitch blackness no doubt freaks them out, and they’re usually dazed for a few moments; the perfect opportunity for me to shoot! This is 3 different squids. #squidink #cephalopod #blackwater #blackwaterdiving

One of the largest and prettiest #scaleworm I’ve ever found. There’s a term, “meroplankton” which describes organisms who will spend only part of their lives, or earlier life stages drifting by with the plankton. #blackwater #blackwaterdiving #polychaete #deepseacreatures

This tiny larval Indian Halibut (Psettodes erumei) popped up late last night while hunting for Aliens off the coast of Tulamben, Bali. A little smaller than a pea. #larvalfish #blackwaterdiving #flatfish #blackwater #gug

This is the first ever video footage of the larval stage of an extremely rare Groenveld’s Stingfish (Minous groeneveldi). Shot on scuba, over very deep water, far offshore, while drifting with the plankton, at night. #groenveldsstingfish #blackwaterdiving #larvalfish #tulamben #stonefish

Cutest bebeh #octopus attack EVER!!! After shooting him for a bit, this pelagic paralaval octopus decided to reach out and hitch a ride on my lens! Shot on scuba, out over the deep abyss, while drifting with the open-ocean plankton, at night. #blackwater #blackwaterdiving #cephalopod

Arguably the most beautiful #shrimp on the planet, this is an exceptionally large mated pair of #harlequinshrimp. Often found carrying a starfish, but this pair must’ve been between meals. I’ve seen them bury their starfish, like making a cage for livestock, so maybe it was just out of sight.

Are these not the coolest eyeballs in the animal kingdom?!? This is a mother peacock mantis shrimp, holding her clutch of red eggs. #stomatopod #mantisshrimp #muckdiving #underwater #scubadiving

Pretty sure this is what the inside of my chest looks like at this point. Another 1.5 days left of diving at @murexresorts 👍 #lungs

Interesting to see this young #flatfish, likely a #sole, swimming through the nighttime blackness yesterday. Shot on #scuba, while drifting over the deep abyss, ~a mile offshore, off Bangka, Indonesia. #solefish #blackwater #blackwaterdiving #murexbangka #gug

I’ve come to Bangka, Indonesia at @murexresorts specifically to shoot in my favorite style - sweeping coral reef scenes, bursting with life. Sadly, these complex scenes are much better viewed 5m wide, than on a tiny phone screen - here each of the thousand+ fish is reduced to a pixel or two☹️

😁😁😁Suuuuuuper excited to place 1st in the ADEX Voice Of The Ocean photo competition with my long-exposure shot of a larval-stage #wonderpus #octopus (the same species featured in the print “Alien 18”).

I shot this image a few months ago, wanting to create a “tiny #clownfish in a great big #anemone” feel. But I’m only seeing it for the first time today. So with lessons learned, tomorrow, I’m going back to it, and plan on spending an entire #dive motionless getting it perfect to match my vision.

A young #anthias swimming amongst red sea whip corals. No big story this time - I just thought it was simple and pretty.

Many worms go through a planktonic larval stage, and in this case, the spaghetti worm is quite similar in form to its post-metamorphosis adult The last 8 seconds shows an adult. Larval footage: Okinawa. Adult: Florida #spaghettiworm #blackwaterdiving #kumejima #okinawa #blackwater

Thanks for all the interest in the special #veliger I posted a few days ago. Because of all the curiosity, here’s a few more of the interesting veligers from 2 weeks ago off Bali’s NE coast. Veliger is the term for an early life stage of #marine #snail - before it settles onto the seafloor.

The largest and most beautiful #veliger I’ve ever seen! Shot last week off Bali, far offshore, on scuba, at night, out over the deep abyss.

The rarest of the rare! This holy-grail dream fish is a larval-stage #monkfish, aka #goosefish. Shot in the wild, using scuba, while diving at night over water several thousand feet deep, several miles offshore from Kumejima, Okinawa. #larvalfish #blackwater #gug #deepseafish

Anemones are so much more than just a home for Nemo! *Also, I’ll save you two hours of watching a boring drama - the 2025 movie called “Anemone” with Daniel Day Lewis and Sean Bean has absolutely nothing to do with marine anemones! What a waste of time!🙄 #anemone #clownfish #cnidaria #scubadiving

A very large juvenile diamond squid - this one measuring in at a whopping 3” - perhaps the 2nd largest I’ve ever seen! Shot in the wild, using scuba, while out over the deep abyss, several miles offshore from Okinawa #diamondsquid #thysanoteuthisrhombus #blackwaterdiving #gug #gugunderwater

A collection of clips from February 3-10, 2024, off West Palm Beach, Florida, USA. While I would have liked to have looked at them ~2 years ago, that was a busy time, and no longer doing the suuuuper time-consuming art exhibits has freed me up in so many ways!!! #deepseafish #deepwatercreatures

Clownfish are the most dedicated patents! Okay, okay… we should be calling them “anemonefish”, not clownfish. Regardless of what we call them, they’re super disciplined parents with both of them aerating & cleaning the eggs using their mouths and fins.

Here in Bali, the Cleaning Stations are a little different than I’m used to. Many of them seem to be “owned” by a hyper-defensive coral grouper (Cephalopholis miniata). These are 4 different groupers from 4 different areas around Tulamben & Amed

What a dedicated dad! The male tiger #jawfish holds the clutch of eggs in his mouth until the behbehies hatch, ~8-9 days later. I usually find them in small groups of 3-5 individuals, each in their own private burrow, spread over an area of ~6’ or so. #tulamben #gug #fisheggs

Chow time! This critically endangered hawksbill sea turtle is dining on sponge and tunicates, but much of the tastiest bits grow on the underside of coral and rubble where no sunlight hits, so he’s got to work for it.

Join me at @rcammart Art Gallery on Friday night in Lauderdale by the Sea, FL! I’ll be live-streaming at the event from Bali. I can’t wait to see your smiling face through my screen at the event! RSVP to Rcamm Art Gallery at [email protected] or at my same gallery phone as always 954-579-8096.

A collection of “Tasteful Nudi’s” (part 4 of 4) Nudibranchs are a type of sea slug - most of the 3000+ species share a few key traits - they riotously colored, slow, small, and have only one defense - chemical. All shot in my first month of Bali in Sept2025 - lots more where this came from!

A collection of “Tasteful Nudi’s” (part 3 of 4) Nudibranchs are a type of sea slug - most of the 3000+ species share a few key traits - they riotously colored, slow, small, and have only one defense - chemical. All shot in my first month of Bali in Sept2025 - lots more where this came from!

A collection of “Tasteful Nudi’s” (part 1 of 4) Nudibranchs are a type of sea slug - most of the 3000+ species share a few key traits - they riotously colored, slow, small, and have only one defense - chemical. All shot in my first month of Bali in Sept2025 - lots more where this came from!

A collection of “Tasteful Nudi’s” (part 1 of 4) Nudibranchs are a type of sea slug - most of the 3000+ species share a few key traits - they riotously colored, slow, small, and have only one defense - chemical. All shot in my first month of Bali in Sept2025 - lots more where this came from!

While it’s not an overall win, being in the top 100 and awarded as a Finalist in the esteemed Close-Up Photographer of the Year Awards is still quite awesome! There were over 12,000 entries this year from 63 countries. This is a larval-stage lobster, wielding an arsenal of stinging siphonophores

Octopus vs. Damselfish! 🥊 Nothing better come between the damselfish and her nest!

Sweet marine mollusk love-makin’ To put you in the mood for Valentines Day, here’s some footage of 3 different types of Pteropods doin’ the Horizontal No-Pants Romance Dance. Show it to your boo or crush, and I guarantee tonight will be magic!❤️

I’m sure you’re paying more attention to the ART than the super cute dogs, right???🤣 Endless From the SeaScapes print collection 72”x36” Even while I’m living in Bali, we’re still here for you throughout the entire design process via phone or email, or in-gallery at Rcamm Art Gallery.

The Jellyfish Hunter! So here we have a pelagic #nudibranch, #Phylliroe sp., who manages to capture #jellyfish & siphonophores. Shot using scuba, over water that’s ~2000’ deep, while drifting with the plankton at night, offshore from Kume, Okinawa. #pelagicnudibranch #blackwater #gug

#Lobsters go through an early life stage called #Phyllosoma where they’re planktonic, and they’re constantly on the lookout for a “life raft” - often something with stingy bits, like this muave stinger #jellyfish. #lobster #blackwaterdiving #deepseacreatures #gug

The #BlueButton, (Porpita porpita). It’s not a #jellyfish, but rather a colony of cooperating #hydroids. Shot using #scuba, while drifting in the open ocean at night. And yes, the lick test says it’s only mildly spicy. #bluebuttonjellyfish #porpitaporpita #blackwaterdiving

My image is up for a Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award! Vote on the 25 nominated images from the >61,000 submitted. www.nhm.ac.uk/wpy/peoples-... A sargassum swimming crab on an unidentified species jelly in Indonesia that I shot in Nov2024

Imagine wearing a #jellyfish as a helmet!?! Well, that’s exactly what this juvenile jack is doing! Mostly immune to its sting, the jack has taken the jellyfish prisoner. Shot using #scuba, out over the deep abyss, drifting at night. #blackwater #blackwaterdiving #scubadiving #gug

The most beautiful #snail ever to exist! Many #marine snails go through an early life stage called #veliger, wherein they drift along with the #plankton before settling onto the sea floor as an adult. We call this, #sparkles #blackwater #blackwaterdiving #mollusk #gug

I’ve never seen so many people so happy on a dive! If you’ve never participated in an ocean cleanup, I promise, it’s the best feeling in the world. Bali needs it! Organized by OceanProsperity.org

Hey little bebeh Ornate Ghost Pipefish - what are you doing out here in the middle of the ocean in the middle of the night, drifting around with the plankton? Not something I’d expect to see out here! #ornateghostpipefish #blackwaterdiving #gugunderwater #kumejima #okinawa

When it comes to my Aliens Collection, the weirder the better - and few fish are weirder than the larval-stage #Lamprogrammus #cuskeel #deepsea #deepseacreatures #deepwater #deepseafish #blackwater #blackwaterdiving #blackwaterphotography #gug #chrisgug #gugunderwater

A male #cardinalfish rotates his brood of eggs. #mouthbrooder #mouthbrooding #bali #amed #amedbali #tulamben #tulambenbali #chrisgug #gug #gugunderwater

Opened my email today to find that two of my images were awarded in the ExposureOne Black & White Nature Photography Awards in the Professionals category! “Holy Waters” took Gold & my newest print release “Shall We Dance” took its first commendation, with a Nominated status.

Spent 30+ minutes with this giant #mimicoctopus - of the dozens (hundreds?) I’ve encountered, this might be the biggest, with a legspan of >2’! #octopus #thaumoctopusmimicus OK fine, I’ll tag #wunderpus just in case… #tulamben #amedbali #tulambenbali #bali #🐙 #gug #gugunderwater #chrisgug

Against All Odds From the SeaScapes Collection of fine art prints 96 X 48” The baby green sea turtle was only about an hour old in this photo! How to get the art: Standard sizes up to 96x48” on the website. Custom with our designers from 16x24” up to 250” at RCamm Art Gallery, via 📞, or email

A giant #Pteropod #seabutterfly, Corolla spectabilis, cruising through the nighttime open ocean. Shot in the wild, using scuba, while drifting out over the deep abyss, at night, off Okinawa. #corollaspectabilis #blackwater #blackwaterdiving #kumejima #okinawa #gug #chrisgug #gugunderwater

My first hairy #shrimp!!! Suuuuuper stoked to see this rare holy grail species! The #hairyshrimp (Phycocaris simulans) aka the #AlgaeShrimp, is a nearly impossible to see tiny tiny tiny little varmint. #phycocarissimulans #🦐 #calimari #muckdiving #tulamben #tulambenbali #bali

Ever seen 🧨💥from underwater? That’s how we knew it was officially 2026! It’s not a competition to be first, but if it was, we’d win😜! At the end, see my FIRST PHOTOS OF 2026 - shot from 12:01am-12:53am, Bali Indonesia time (13 hours ahead of NY/Miami).