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These Photos are of my Cheshire Cat Grin photo, which won the Oceans division of the 2008 Nature's Best Photography Windland Smith Rice Awards. Chosen from more than 20,000 photos, it was featured in a 2-page spread in the Fall 2008 Nature's Best Photography Collector's magazine, and a huge print of it is on display (through May 3, 2009) in a special exhibition in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.

Below that are some of the instances of the photo in numerous newspapers around the world...some considerably less dignified than the Smithsonian! All told, this "silly" photo has enabled me to raise several thousand dollars for the charity I'm currently supporting: www.icsfoundation.org

Rough translation of the above full-page Bejing Evening News article (daily circulation 1 million), with a few corrections of misquotes:

A Good Photograph Must Be Unique

For 54 year old amateur photographer Bruce Yates, the recently arrived Natures' Best Photography Award 2008 is an astonishing gift for the new year. Due to scuba diving, he fell in love with underwater photography and also manages his hobby very well, Bruce, who is the boss of an investment company, photographed a “smiling” lemon shark and became the “Oceans Winner” of the Nature Best Photography Competition, defeating over 20,000 entries.

My Lens Was Just a Few Inches Away from the Shark
When Bruce Yates submitted this photograph for the competition, he named it “Cheshire Cat Grin”, from an English proverb “grinning like a Cheshire Cat”. In the photograph, the shark is showing snow-white teeth, with a very cartoon-like “smiling” expression, “That was an 'expression' I have never seen on a shark, I don't know that I would ever have an opportunity to take a photograph like that again”, Bruce Yates said. However, he admitted that the shark only looked like it was smiling; in actual fact, at that moment, it had just preyed on small fish and was about to close its mouth.

The photograph was taken in July 2007, when Bruce went to Bahamas north-west many miles from the land, for scuba diving to see sharks. “At that time, there were more than 10 sharks around the boat; they were competing to capture the small fishes in the waters. “I took this photograph from the boat's platform and put the camera half-submerged in the water. Before that, I set the shutter, aperture and flash (so that the sunset could be seen clearly), and fixed a 15mm fisheye lens. Once the camera was half-submerged, the 8 foot shark was just a few inches away.”

As all know, sharks are the marine food chain's apex predator; Spielberg's Jaw's increased the sharks' image of terror to the max. It seems that there would be no small risk to photograph sharks at such close distant. After this email interview with Bruce Yates, his answers eased the worry. In Bruce's eyes, the lemon shark is a more docile type of shark. “I have experienced being in the waters with hundreds of lemon sharks, but I have never been afraid. Although their teeth make them look very fierce, the lemon sharks' threat to man is actually minuscule.”

Bruce said he has had encounters with bull sharks, tiger sharks, hammer-head sharks, and also other sharks. He mentioned that it is indeed essential to maintain utmost vigilance around some sharks (especially bull sharks & tiger sharks), but with lemon sharks, it is not so. “Tiger sharks command fear and respect and are a wonderful type of sharks. Unfortunately, to catch a glimpse of sharks while diving, it is usually only from quite a distance. Of course, if you fear them, distance to you is a fortunate thing.” Bruce said, “Ordinary people who like to get close to sharks should be accompanied by professionals who understand the sharks' habits. Under their supervision, with careful attention to one's behavior and not to excite or anger the sharks, the risk of sharks’ attacks is very low. In fact, the number of people killed by sharks' bites are far less than people killed by dogs, attacked by venomous snakes or killed by bicycle or skiing accidents.

The thing that worries Bruce is: the global shark population is rapidly declining due to man's massive catch/kill. In order to satisfy man's taste for shark fin soup, fishermen slice off the fins from the live sharks to sell and then throw the sharks back into the sea, leaving the finless sharks to die.

Started underwater photography at age 40
Understanding sharks is the result of long-term interaction with these marine creatures. Although Bruce is an amateur underwater photographer, he already has 15 years of underwater photography experience.

At 40 years old, he received his scuba certificate and fell in love with this sport. After a few years of diving, he decided to try underwater video-graphy. At first, he used video camera to capture the underwater scenes but the problem was that video editing could only be done at home and was very time-consuming. So, the video camera was changed into a 35mm SLR. In 2003, the SLR was changed to a DSLR. Bruce uses custom made waterproof camera housings.

Other than photography, Bruce is the owner of an investment company, with 17 employees; the company has been operating for more than 20 years, with clients spread over the 26 states of America. Bruce said underwater photography is his most enjoyed escape from mundane life. His favorite location is Indonesia's Raja Ampat and Papua New Guinea, because these places have unique marine creatures.

Other than underwater photography, Bruce also occasionally shoots some wildlife on land, such as precious moments of adult polar bears strolling with cubs and brown bears catching fish at Alaska's Katmai National Park. Bruce said these photographs are shot when he joined nature tours; they always kept safe distant from the bears, so they were not afraid of being attacked. In some situations, especially when being threatened or startled, then brown bears will attack, but humans are not in their daily food chain, so they are not very interested in us.”

Bruce prefers underwater photography to land photography. “In water, the target/intention of photography is usually clear - a fish, a sea turtle, or the coral reef. However, on land, many things will create distractions to the shoot, so I don't have the same feeling that I have with underwater photography. But I am working to overcome this.”

During the interview, Bruce frankly admitted that he did not feel that his photography skills won the judges over. “I think the reason this photograph stood out from more than 20 thousand photographs was the unique expression on the shark's face. This photograph was not perfect in terms of skills, but the shark showing the toothy grin immediately attracts attention. Obviously, it also worked on the judges. This also means that not only specialists or professional photographers can shoot good photographs. If you have talent, plus enough experience, you can also capture a one and only, attention grabbing photograph.”

Donated over 10 Thousand USD to Charity
Bruce said he has not thought about earning money from photography, but he has a website where viewers are able to browse and buy his photographs in different sizes.

In 2007, Bruce carefully chose 12 photographs of marine creatures and created a calendar for sale on the website that earned 12 thousand usd which he donated entirely to PKD Foundation. PKD is a genetic disease, the growth in the kidney will cause kidney failure, sufferers must continuously receive dialysis and only kidney transplant can save them. According to PKD Foundation website, there are more sufferers of PKD than sufferers of genetic pancreatic disease, muscular distrophy, Hemophilia, and Downs syndrome combined, and yet not many people have heard of it.

Bruce knows of PKD because 2 staff of his company has family members who suffered from it. “I convinced my business partner to let our company pay for the costs of the producing the calendars.” Bruce chose some of his favorites from a few hundred photographs and ingeniously put together all the months. “For November, I chose an orange frogfish, because it looks like a pumpkin.” Bruce plans to donate all the 2008 revenue from his photography to the International Children's Surgical Fund.