I took this image in 1990. I had been taking underwater images for about 5 years, and all the time submitting them to all the dive magazines, with no luck. So sitting around and thinking of way to get published it came to me. I had been diving in Laguna Beach for years and had come to know a very playfully harbor seal; if I could get this seal to interact with a pumpkin that I’ll carve, then how could the dive magazines resist.
I carved my pumpkin and set out on my dive; as soon as I hit bottom the harbor seal was there. The whole time I was stopping the seal from taking the mask, and all the while getting images.
In the end, the seal got off with the mask and I got published in 5 magazines; to this day, the image is still making me money.
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