Diving just off Cat Island in the Bahamas, Russell Easton and his partner were taking snapshots of ocean life when Easton was approached by a 12-foot tiger shark. Easton began taking pictures of the shark with his camera that was packed inside waterproof housing, but quickly drew unwanted attention from the shark. According to Easton, he was looking through the viewfinder to take another shot when the teeth of the shark snapped down on the housing. In an interview with the Daily Mail, Easton stated “In that moment, I managed to get one shot of the inside of its mouth. Thankfully, sharks are attracted to cameras and bit that instead, giving me vital seconds to swim away.”
In the meantime, Easton’s partner was taking photographs of the encounter and captured the terrifying event in a few frames. Easton believes that the shark was only attempting to understand what Easton was and used a quick bite to figure that out. The camera captured one shot of the tiger shark when it was clamped down on the waterproof rig. Known as a conservationist, this incident hasn’t frightened Easton off from capturing photographs while underwater. He plans to return to Cat Island to pursue underwater photograph as well as taking more pictures of sharks.
During early 2010, photographer and surfer Dale Kobetich was floating off the Newport Beach pier in California when he was approached by a Mako shark. Kobetich wasn’t wearing any scuba gear, but rather floating in the water with his underwater camera housing. After circling him for approximately 20 minutes, the Mako shark attempted to attack Kobetich. Similar to Easton’s encounter, Kobetich pushed the camera housing into the shark’s mouth and snapped off several stunning shots of the shark. The Mako shark was approximately five to six feet long and weighed about 150 pounds. Kobetich didn’t let the encounter scare him off and returned to the water the following morning to be rewarded with a dolphin encounter approximately ten feet away from him.
This article was originally posted on Digital Trends
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