Episode 6: Part 2 Transcript

Brittany (00:00)

Today, Long Island native Chris Paparo is back for part two of our conversation. Known by many as Fish Guy Photos, Chris has spent years documenting what lives beneath Long Island waters. From tropical fish and giant stingrays, to sharks, shore diving, and to the most surprising marine life found right here in our own backyard.

All right, Chris, I'm going to transition us into, since you are on the Dive Long Island podcast, I want to dive into scuba diving. You mentioned that you were fishing at age five or six, and you were fishing off the Shinnecock Canal. How did diving end up entering your life?

Chris (00:45)

I wanted to see what the fish were doing when my lure went by. It's really the ultimate reason. You know, in my head growing up, I had visions of what the Shinnecock Canal looked like on the bottom. I had visions of what Ponquogue Bridge looked like on the bottom, but I hadn't seen it, you know? And when I was a kid, there weren't fancy GoPros or underwater drones and all this other cool stuff that I could just put down there to see what was going on. You kind of physically had to get under there. So as soon as I was...

Able, I got scuba certified and back in the day I think I was 16 or 17 and I got certified on the North Shore of Long Island Cedar Point or Cedar Beach whatever it was called over my Mount Sinai and it was super exciting even though the vis was like this it was horrible and I remember seeing spider crabs underwater and you know for the first time and but I was I was so into it it was just like all right now I and now I get when I go fishing somewhere when I why I want to fish certain areas like

the fish hide behind this, why are there always fish here? Well, when I got down there, there's a rock. So they're hiding behind the rock out of the current. So all of things started connecting ⁓ and making more sense. yeah, so that was my initial reason was I want to learn more about these fish again so I can catch bigger and more of them. Yeah.

Brittany (02:03)

Do you think scuba diving helped you with your rod and reel skills?

Chris (02:07)

Definitely hundred percent special for places that I fished regular like Pond Quag Bridge You know I knew where to fish for certain things But I never understood why like you cast here and when it gets to here you'll get a hit if there are fish there I just never understood why but then I get down there like I said there's there's something there's a structure There's something that the fish would stack up behind So just yeah, just maybe understand it more and then also presenting a lure Now I could see what it looks like to that fish. this doesn't look fishy

Now it looks fishy. So there's a lot of things like that.

Brittany (02:40)

You mentioned Cedar Beach being one of the places that you dived. Also the ⁓ Ponquogue Bridge. Were there other shore dives that you did before getting to the Ponquogue Bridge?

Chris (02:52)

Did the Horton Point Lighthouse, which was like a hundred and twenty something steps to the bottom I did that once or twice and I'm like, this is stupid, you know, it's easy going down But excuse me coming back up was horrible Especially with all your gear wet and tired at this point. So I'm like this is dumb I'm not doing this anymore. I was great diving but it wasn't worth the trek Duck Pond Point which was also in Mattituck, I believe that was another great shore dive

Unfortunately, a lot of the towns started changing their parking regulations. ⁓ When I was a kid, was Memorial Day to Labor Day, you needed a permit. But outside of that, there was never an issue. Now, many of these beaches need permits year round, so some of my access has been lost just from not having parking ability. ⁓ mostly it was North Shore. Other than the Ponquogue Bridge, I didn't really do a lot on the South Shore, because at the time, I didn't know any better. Now I do...

just find a beach and go in. I'm not looking for rocks, I'm looking for just, let's see what lives on this mud flat. So it's a totally different experience for me now.

Brittany (03:58)

So the Ponquogue Bridge, how would you rate that as one of the shore dives on Long Island?

Chris (04:03)

Probably the best shore dive I've done anywhere. There's a lot of current. It's close to the inlet. So you get that nice clean ocean water racing through the pilings, which cause a lot of filter feeders from sponges and tunicates to even corals growing on it, mussels, which then attract all sorts of fish and crabs and shrimp and other things. So it's almost like our local coral reef, other than the fact it's on a piling, it's very reef-like.

And the vis there can be anywhere from, you know, in front of your hand to, I've had as good as 25, 30 feet. So it really depends on it. And again, I've seen everything there from a little tiny seahorse up to a 500 pound stingray, you know, and everything in between. So it's just a neat spot and it's close. You need a permit to park there, but they sell a permit for non-residents as well.

so I can get that. It's on my route from home to work, so I could stop before work, I could stop after work if I'm not speaking. Once in a while I might sneak in at lunchtime because I could do a fairly quick dive there. So I've spent a lot of time diving the bridge.

Brittany (05:15)

Now, you had mentioned earlier the fact that Long Island will see tropical species. Is there a particular window and is the Ponquogue Bridge a place where you can see them?

Chris (05:29)

Yeah, we start seeing tropical fish usually around July 4th weekend is usually when I start seeing the first of them. They're tiny. Well, not all of them are tiny. If they're drifters, so drifting on the Gulf Stream, they're going to be tiny. If they're kind of swimming here as adults, they could be large. Like the first tropicals that drift here I usually find will be juvenile groupers or snapper, like gray snapper, gag groupers.

But then the first tropicals that'll swim here, typically by 4th of July week, you start seeing triggerfish, the gray triggerfish, and they'll be fully grown adults that'll swim up here. And then they'll stay in our area till, well, it depends. Some never leave, and the water just gets too cold and they perish. Others will start migrating south as it starts getting cold, but the ones that'll migrate will start usually leaving the area by mid to end of September.

The ones that will perish when the water gets too cold. I've collected them as late as Thanksgiving. So it really depends on the temperature. If the temperature stays warm for the fall, then we'll have them a little bit later into the fall. I've also seen them completely alive one minute and the next day dead because it got super cold overnight up in the shallows. So it can vary. yeah, it's prime time is end of August into September. And yeah, Ponquogue Bridge is a great place for them.

Brittany (06:52)

Now how exactly do they get here, Chris?

Chris (06:55)

So again, some swim here as adults, so like gray triggerfish, ⁓ rough tail stingrays, butterfly rays, tarpon, I've seen six foot tarpon up here, ⁓ four foot barracuda, they swim here as adults. Some of them will follow the warm water, some of them just follow the shoreline, depends on what it is. And then the other group are drifters. So most fish, not all fish, when they spawn, they release egg and sperm into the water.

simplifying here, but they mix it, they get the fertilized and those eggs will then drift and that's how they might then drift and settle on a new reef, a new grass bed or something else. Well some of get stuck in the Gulf Stream and drift all the way up here. And the Gulf Stream is about a hundred miles offshore so you get little eddies that break off when the winds and currents are just right that push these pockets of warm water with these larval fish to Long Island. Then when they hit our south shore

A jetty, a bridge, some sort of structure, seagrass is also a popular spot. They settle out to start their life. And many of them don't know that, oh man, winter's coming here. They just know this is good place, a lot of food. The ones that can migrate back out might be like you, jacks, crevalle jack, pyramid, African pompano, banded rudderfish, amberjack. They'll hightail it out of you when it starts getting cold. But things like spotfin butterflyfish, reef butterflyfish,

blue angelfish, french angelfish, they don't migrate. know, they're in their native part where they settle, they're pretty much there their entire life. So when the water gets too cold, they don't have the instinct to leave. And then they'll just slowly freeze and get gobbled up by local fish that are eating these easy meals.

Brittany (08:39)

You had said that you collected them. What can divers do with those tropical fish as the season comes to an end?

Chris (08:47)

I mean, it's a natural occurring process. So often a lot of times people are like, we have to go save them. And I'm like, they're here on their own and it's a natural process. And like I said, those ones that slow down become food for other stuff. So it is part of our food chain. But some people want to collect them for their home aquarium. So as long as it doesn't have a size limit in the state of New York, you can do that. And the reason I preference that is, cobia. We'll get little tiny cobia up here and they're really cute.

I don't recommend them as a because one they get really big really fast But to cobia have to be 30 I think it's 37 or 39 inches in the state of New York to keep So if you get caught with a two inch cobia, it's undersized and you'll get a fine for that ⁓ Some of our tropical fish also just don't get along with each other So like spotfin butterflyfish very common people collect five six ten of them bring them home and they'll kill each other You know, they're very territorial if you get lucky, maybe you'll find a pair that get along

but for the most part, they're gonna beat each other up. Groupers get huge, eat everything. So, I mean, keeping tropical fish from Long Island is not impossible, but just keep in mind, you might need multiple tanks. I mean, at point when I was a kid at my house, I had 13 fish tanks, because I'd get something, I was gonna eat other things, so I had to set up a new tank for it, you know, and then had tanks all over the house, living room, basement, bedrooms, you know, you name it. So, these days, I don't collect as much.

I always have collecting stuff with me in case I find something pretty cool, but these days I have a camera and video camera, you know, so I'm taking pictures or taking videos of these fish that then get incorporated into my lectures, my articles, my social media posts. So for me, I get more mileage out of that than bringing one back to the lab or back to my home, which I don't have a home aquarium, but if I had one.

Brittany (10:36)

Is there a tropical fish that surprised you seeing it up here?

Chris (10:41)

Yeah, there was one that's probably close to 10 years ago. We were out with a school group and Jock Comer, which you may or may not know. I don't know if you know Jock Comer. High school, Westhampton Beach High School teacher. He had a school group out there. We were doing our normal trawling in September and I kind of oversee the kids. I'm watching them as they're sifting through the fish and a fish caught my eye and I was like, I had to take like a double take because I wasn't expecting to see that and I was like,

Get out of way! And I kind of like, I would have thrown these kids overboard to get to that fish. And it was a striated frogfish, which I never even thought would be up here. You know, we get another frogfish, we get the Sargassum fish, which is a frogfish, which I was aware of, but this striated frogfish is a benthic, or a bottom species, so it lives on the bottom. It was wicked cool, it probably three or four inches. For those that don't know, frogfish are also known as anglerfish. So they call them frogfish because their fins look like frog legs.

They call them anglerfish because their first dorsal fin is modified into a fishing lure and they'll go fishing. So it was wicked cool. And a lot of these teachers, when they bring their classes out, they're expecting to bring some of those fish, like these tropical ones, back to the classroom. And I was like, Jock, I've been doing this for a long time. I can't let you take this one. I need to keep this one at the lab. He's like, I'm like, come on, man. I've been doing this collecting tropical fish for well over 30 years. Like, you can't. And he's like, all right, fine. So he let me keep it.

We went out the next day and we caught another one in the same exact spot. And I really wanted to keep that one too, but I had to let them have that one. So they brought that one back to the lab. But yeah, I mean, I've only ever seen three of them here on Long Island. So ⁓ that was probably the most memorable. I've seen rarer fish since then, but nothing that I was as excited. Like I saw a red snapper and that was really cool. But like it's a red snapper, a yellowtail snapper. Again, never seen one up here and that was really cool. But it was like,

It's not an anglerfish. So that was really exciting.

Brittany (12:39)

Any of them more recent?

Chris (12:42)

The last couple years we've seen a lot of angelfish, more so than ever. ⁓ Not this past year, but the year before I did one dive and there had to be about 50 angelfish. And on that dive, ⁓ the angelfish were mostly blue angelfish, there were a couple French angelfish, but there was also a queen angel, which I'd never seen before and I got some amazing photos of a queen angelfish, which was the first time I ever seen one up here. That got me pretty excited. And like I said, I got some great pictures of that one, so I was happy with that.

Brittany (13:12)

What about our local species? Is there one that you hope that you'll see that maybe you don't see year round necessarily, but under the bridge that you're searching for to get a great photo of?

Chris (13:24)

There's one fish that I love seeing when I can find them, get pictures and videos, and it's probably the most hated fish on Long Island, and that would be the sea robin. Everyone hates them because it's a trash fish, all this other nonsense, which is nonsense, it's not trash fish. ⁓ They're ugly, they're not ugly, I think they're really cool. But the thing about it is because so many people hate them, that when I get pictures and videos of them, one, it creates a lot of discussion, but...

More so when I get videos of them, especially feeding, people get super excited because they just again think it's this big ugly fish. They don't realize that they have a modified pectoral fins that have these big wings and on the front their first three rays are little feet and they have taste buds. So it's almost like whiskers on a catfish and they use it to walk on the bottom. So seeing one of these things walking along the bottom, people also now appreciate it a little bit more. They're like, ⁓ it's not just this big ugly flailing fish that

stole our bait, it walks, it crawls around the bottom catching stuff. So that's one of our local fish that I like to photograph. And then probably my favorite though, and I photograph them every time I see them, would be a summer flounder or a fluke. Because it's the closest thing I can get to a winter flounder. As I mentioned, we only see these little tiny winter flounders, so I have not seen a big winter flounder scuba diving around here. But one thing about the flounders, every one of them is different.

matched it, they changed their color to match the surroundings in front of your eyes. So if a flounder landed on this table, it would be black and pretty quickly you'd see it get dark. And then maybe it swims over to a sandy patch and all of a as it swims over, it's gonna get lighter and change color, change pattern. So everyone is a little bit different, a slightly different. And they'll let you get pretty close to them, depending on that camouflage. So those are the two local fish that...

I really kind of search out when I find them, know, when I'm diving, because I want to get photos of them.

Brittany (15:24)

Chris, Flounder and Phook are kind of funny looking. They end up laying flat, but their eyeballs are on one side. Is that how they are from the very beginning of their development?

Chris (15:35)

No, actually, when they first hatch, they swim like a regular fish. They have eyes on each side of their head. So when you see a flounder when you're scuba diving, it's not a flat fish as we might think would be a flat fish. Like a stingray is a true flat, flat fish. It's flat. Its eyes run on each side. Like if you cut a line down the center, it's symmetrical on both sides. A flounder is lying down. They're on their side. They're not laying on their belly.

So when they first hatch, they have an eye on each side of their head and they swim up in the water column like a regular fish. And they'll come out of that larval stage and they swim down to the bottom and lay down. Now, if they lay down, that eye on the bottom is useless. So it actually migrates around to the other side. So they have two eyes on the same side of their body. So when you look head on at a flounder, also laying on the bottom, you'll notice its mouth open sideways. It doesn't open up and down like a normal fish would. And that's because again, it's on its side.

And because of that, each flounder species might have their eyes on a different side. a summer flounder, also known as a fluke, is a left-eyed flounder. Their eyes are on the left side of their body. A winter flounder, though, their eyes are actually on the right side of their body. So when you catch that little tiny flounder in the summertime, most people say, it's a fluke, because it's the summertime. 99 % of time, they're a little winter flounder. And if you just look at the way that their eyes are,

their eyes are gonna be on the right side of their body, which will tell you that it's a winter flounder. Because when they're small, you can't see if it's got a big mouth or full of sharp teeth, but you can definitely tell if it's a left-eyed or a right-eyed flounder.

Brittany (17:10)

Have you ever caught a picture of them before their eyes transition? Are they just too small?

Chris (17:17)

Too small, I have gotten one that I would call post larval, which meant it just left the stage and was just settling and the eye was moving. It was actually a windowpane flounder. wasn't either a flounder we just talked about. ⁓ That was super exciting. It was in a plankton tow and it was this one fish that just looked a little odd. I put it in a tank with macro lens. I was able to get a picture and I was like, wow. And you could see that it was just, had just laid down at that point.

Brittany (17:47)

Is there other macro life that you search for on your dives?

Chris (17:51)

I mean they're not necessarily, I want to say macro, they're small, they hide really well so it's not easy, but once you get the eye for it they're fairly easy to find if they're in the area. Around here we get nudibranchs, know most people think tropics, but we do get nudibranchs around here. They're tiny, they're really small so it takes a good eye to find them as well. And I think around here I think a lot of what I do is macro because the vis might not be.

50 or 60 feet or 100 feet like it would be in the tropics. You might only be limited to right here in front of you. So I think focusing on even like the mantle of a blue mussel is really pretty. And again, most people don't see that because they're just eating them, right? Yeah.

Brittany (18:35)

What about larger life? You had mentioned earlier, really large stingray, rough-tailed stingray that you've seen under the bridge. They can get four to five feet, right?

Chris (18:44)

I think about 10 feet. 10 feet? Long, long, yeah.

Brittany (18:48)

So is there other large life that you try to photograph?

Chris (18:51)

Sharks, sharks would be a good one. In the bay we don't generally see a whole lot of sharks. Sand sharks, the smooth dogfish, is probably the only shark I've seen in any of our bays. I know other species are here, I just have not seen them diving in the bay. Other large stuff that I've seen around here, really schools of striped bass. Here it's a little different, we have sea turtles, we have a lot of that stuff, but again with the viz being sort of limited.

you don't always get an opportunity to see some of that stuff in the bay. You know, I have friends that dive in the ocean. You probably could speak to this too, where you might have seen some of this other stuff, larger sharks and sea turtles, maybe even dolphins and whales. know, Todd has a crazy video of him as a humpback whale swam by while he was in the water. So I mean, you know, there's some, there is bigger stuff out in the ocean, but in the bay, big striped bass would probably be the, or the most big stingrays.

Brittany (19:47)

You've caught a lot of the sharks in your drone footage though.

Chris (19:51)

Yeah, pretty much the ocean though. I a lot of sharks here. In fact, I'm part of the South Fork Natural History Museum shark research program. So I am involved in tagging a lot of these sharks. my role in the group is, I like to say I'm the PR person. You know, I do a lot of the photos, videos. write some for local magazines. And I also do a lot of public lectures about the work we're doing.

Brittany (20:15)

Sharks, whales too, right? You've caught ⁓ on the drone.

Chris (20:19)

Yeah, yeah lot of whales around here. Last year was a little slow but in the past couple years humpback whales have been pretty regular along the beaches.

Brittany (20:27)

When people think about Long Island, they generally don't think of it as being a very biodiverse location. We just mentioned so many different types of life ranging from something like this eyes ear, fingernail to a whale. How do you think we could help others to see that that misconception is not true other than just telling them?

Chris (20:52)

People do not slow down and pay attention to what's in their backyard, you know, in their region and their part of the, little part of the world. You know, again, we've, yeah, we've talked about so many different things that are here and I get it all the time when I post something, my God, I had no idea this was here. We had whales? I've never been whales here, you know, but they don't know the whole backstory that whales historically were always here. They were hunted to near extinction, but due to protections of the air, the water,

food that they eat, and the whales themselves, they've made a comeback to the point where the humpback whale is no longer listed as endangered or threatened in the North Atlantic. They're listed as vulnerable because long live, slow growing. But that's a huge success story. But people are like, there was never whales here when I was a kid. But again, it's a positive thing. Same with sharks. We hear a lot now that you talk to a fisherman and there's a shark problem. We have a shark problem. The shark problem is because

I go striped bass fishing and they eat all my fish, you know, 10 years, 15 years ago, there were no sharks eating my fish. There was plenty of fish. Right, because we overfished all the sharks in the 60s and 70s, you into the 80s. So they were wiped out just like the marine mammals. But again, now to do to the regulations, a lot of these species are starting to make a comeback. Many of the sharks, sharks worldwide are on a steep decline. In our region, it's one of the few places in the world where there are actually starting to be an uptick in the population of sharks. And again, that's through

good conservation work, not just protecting sharks, but cleaning the oceans, cleaning the bays, cleaning the air that ends up coming into the ocean. ⁓ But again, yeah, getting people to realize that we have sharks here, we have whales here. ⁓ Go to land, bald eagles, very common on Long Island. So again, all this stuff, people are shocked that it's here, but they just don't take the time to slow down and pay attention.

Brittany (22:45)

You characterize yourself as the PR person for SOFO?

Chris (22:49)

That's what I like to say. I do a lot of public lectures. I've had probably half a dozen or so magazine articles out there. yeah, that's what I like to try. Unfortunately these days my schedule doesn't allow me to get out as much as I possibly can. like last summer I was there, eyes in the air. Before work I'd fly the drone looking for sharks. And then could relay to the guys, hey.

There's a school of bunker and there's a dozen sharks on it at point A. They didn't have to spend time setting up in a spot, traveling. So that's my other, I'm there intel also. That eyes in the sky trying to keep things. And last year paid off because we were having a hard time finding certain species like sand tiger sharks, but I was spotting them every morning with a drone. So they just would kind of go to the area where I was going to be and I put the drone up and like, yep, they're right here. And they literally could get in on them and do the tagging work that they had to do.

Brittany (23:45)

Using your camera or your drone for storytelling has been something that you've referenced a few times. Did you realize when you first picked up a camera that those images would have such an impact?

Chris (24:01)

Nope, nope. I thought at first I was gonna be an agio-photographer. was, you know, and maybe those would, I guess, have an impact. initially when I was taking pictures, I had no idea that, you I was just taking cool pictures that I could show my family or friends. you know, back in the day, you know, we had to print our pictures. You know, there was no, it wasn't just digital. So was photo albums that I could share with people. But yeah, I never would thought that there was a larger impact. You know mean? I get people.

I was having lunch yesterday and someone's like, hey, are you the fish guy? I love your stuff, man. my god I follow you all the time, you know And he told me his name and I recognized him as one of the followers that you know But I was like wow. All right that made a big impact cuz he's like, my god love the owls the wood ducks. I hope the wood ducks don't kicked out by the square He knew my whole whole story. So it was really kind of kind of neat but yeah I know I would have never thought that like 20 something years ago that I would run into someone in the store while eating lunch that recognized me and started talking about

the stories that I talk about or share or that they follow on my social media.

Brittany (25:04)

I read a comment that one of your followers talked about how your work and your photos bring so much joy to their life. And they look forward to looking at that and opening it up each morning. When you read comments like that, how do you feel about what you're doing and what you're bringing to the table?

Chris (25:26)

I feel good. I feel good. feel it's six that what I all the hard work I put in is is is successful because you know in the beginning it was it's still it's still a lot of hard work but in the beginning all that hard work and I wasn't I didn't have the reach I didn't have the you know the those things was kind of like all right what am I doing here my it isn't doing anything but again it took some it took some time and I think kind of like I said earlier about how

I love working with the students at the college. I loved working with the students at the aquarium. ⁓ I love working with the community through Fish Guy Photos. I've created quite the community ⁓ through my social media. Again, people know the seasons. They know what I'm going to post about. They follow the sagas. And like you said, a lot of them, they enjoy seeing that daily post. I don't try to bomb people with a million posts a day or one a day.

Sometimes too if there's something exciting. ⁓ But I try to do one a day, a little brightness of what normally is just an ugly social media. know, with everything going on in the world, there's so much nonsense. So if I could bring a little bit of light and smile to what they're seeing and making maybe a difference in the environment at the same time, then I'm doing a good thing. Like I said, the outpouring of support has been huge. A couple years ago, I lost my drone.

Put it up, never came back. Lost connection, lost it somewhere in the ocean. I was devastated because they're not cheap and I'm not making enough money to just go out and buy a brand new one and I made a comment about that and the community just jumped behind me. Like it was like, do go find me, we'll help it. And I even had one supporter who ponied up all the money for a drone. I'd never met this person. They wanted to remain anonymous, which I...

perfectly fine with but never met this person but they loved my work so much that they wanted to see it continue and Paid $3,500 for me to get a new drone For me that was huge and like that was that was like wow Wow, know is it that was a tough one cuz they said I was I wasn't in a position to go get one and I mean I would have gotten another one at some point but it probably would have been Me lecturing a lot more than I wanted to just to make that extra cash to justify buying a new one. So

⁓ But again the outpouring was amazing. It was really Blew me away totally blew me away. So ⁓ Yeah, the community I've built is yeah awesome

Brittany (28:02)

remarkable. One of the impacts that you had was helping save the old Ponquogue Bridge back in 2014. You played a pretty pivotal role in helping to preserve the bridge as a dive site. Can you tell us a little bit about what was going to happen to the bridge and how you ended up getting involved?

Chris (28:14)

Yeah, it's been a while.

Yeah, so mean the Ponquogue Bridge is a special place for me because again growing up it was Shinnecock Canal and the Ponquogue Bridge I remember fishing the bridge and we still had the drawbridge and watching them build the new bridge And being like oh, I wonder what that's gonna look like under the window And so I remember all of that and then fast forward to hurricane sandy, you know and hurricane sandy as you know destroyed this area, you know shorelines houses all sorts of stuff and one of that the

Things that got hit hard was the bridge, the old bridge. And the north side of the old bridge was very low to the water for the whole length. It almost went to the middle of the bay. But all the wave action, kicking it, knocked all the boards out, destroyed that whole upper part of the bridge. The south side, which is much taller, also had a lot of damage from pilings. So the town was going to demo the old bridge. was a safety hazard. Gotta get rid of it.

Well, the community, not only just diving community, but the fishing community and the locals that live here, like the bridge is a part of their, it's an icon, it's iconic in the area. So the community really got involved like, hey, we're not losing this bridge, we're gonna find a way. And the Long Island Dive Association, LIDA, Barry Lipsky, reached out to me and said, hey, we're having town meetings, your stuff is amazing, can you?

speak at some of these town meetings and showcase your videos and pictures and it's like yeah whatever I whatever I can do and ⁓ I said they they they organized the grassroots to get us in front of the right people and at the town hall I did a two minute PowerPoint you know with like 10 or 15 slides and it was extremely well received and again like I like I said multiple times today it's like I got the

my god, I had no idea all that stuff was under the bridge. yeah There's a whole community of like and it really opened the eyes of a lot of people and again the work of a team that you know Everybody kind of got them to say alright Let's step back and see what happens and I don't remember where the funding came from but they found funding to make it a Marine Park You know, so they lost most of the North Bridge Which was expected, you know, but the South Bridge was renovated new docks. It's handicapped accessible I mean they they did a great job with it and it's still ⁓

dive site which is awesome. And the local dive community still works with it. I've been involved with some cleanups with the Hampton Dive Center in Riverhead where we get a bunch of people down there and we just dive to clean up garbage. So it was a huge win for the area.

Brittany (31:05)

Do you remember which photos you brought to share with the Southampton town representative?

Chris (31:09)

It

was definitely fluke, know, definitely fluke. But a lot of it was the invertebrates, the filter feeders, so sponges and our local corals and mussels and things that I knew people wouldn't understand. Like yeah, we know fish live under the bridge. We know what a fluke looks like. We know what a striped bass looks like. to see that it looks like a coral reef underwater like really opened a lot of people's eyes because that's what we were telling everyone. It's like this is a coral reef. It's a living reef. Like you can't just...

rip it out because you're now ripping out all these animals with it, you know? ⁓ So yeah, so that was the stuff I think was the biggest impact of it.

Brittany (31:48)

With the impact that you had on the Ponquogue Bridge, did you foresee yourself as a photographer having that ability to storytell and bring that knowledge to the public when you first picked up a camera?

Chris (32:05)

When I first picked up a camera, was ⁓ because I was going on a vacation, pretty much. It ⁓ wasn't meant to be like I was going to be a world-class photographer or anything like that. My parents bought me a camera because I was going on a ⁓ class, a school class, called Tropical Marine Bio, and we were going to the South Pacific, specifically Fiji for two weeks and the Solomon Islands for two weeks.

So when I was going on such a trip my parents like you cannot go on a trip like this without a camera at the time I was using my dad's camera, which was my grandfather's his father's camera And back in the day for you kids it was film ⁓ But it was an old camera so like no you're going Someplace we've never gone who knows if you ever get back there you need a good camera So for like my birthday or Christmas whatever it was before that they bought me a camera an SLR

and with two lenses, so I had like a regular lens and a little tiny zoom lens, nothing crazy, like you got to, you have to. And then I went to, I remember going to Costco and buying bricks of film. And yeah, I went and that was it. And I remember just taking a ton of pictures on that trip of everything. And I look back now in those pictures, you know, it's great. They're in albums. It was just such a...

Such a great memory, but yeah, was no, for that was more of just a memory thing. It was my first camera, was really just taking pictures to remember like a pretty special, unique place that I probably would not get back to. ⁓ Was what got me started in photography. Like I never took a class. I've never been any way of trained. It's all been self-taught. So reading, online forums, things like that. ⁓ Learning as I go type of thing. ⁓

was how I got into photography.

Brittany (33:59)

So at what age was that about when you were on that trip?

Chris (34:02)

I

was a senior in college so that was ⁓ that would have been 99 so January 99 and that was a was a changing moment for me in many many many ways you know that trip when I got that's what started Fish Guy Photos you know what I didn't know what at the time what the business would be or anything but it that's what that was my first real camera and real opportunity to take pictures even on that trip the college had underwater cameras that we could borrow

So there were a couple dives where I had an SLR in a housing and was able to take underwater photos. Prior to that, I had disposable cameras that would go in these little plastic housing cases that were just, was nonsense, you but that was what I had at the time. So, yeah, so even that trip got me my first underwater photography stuff, ⁓ which was super, super exciting, yeah.

Brittany (34:55)

Now for film, know, once you take that picture, you only have so much film available. So learning in that environment must have been pretty challenging.

Chris (35:07)

Yeah, the underwater photography in that aspect was really just, I'm taking pictures and hoping for the best. There was, there really was no learning because, know, I only had, you know, there was a class of like 25 of us and you know, not every dive I could have a camera. There was enough cameras for a couple of us to have. So I only got maybe two or three opportunities with the camera. So really it was just, yeah, shoot and hope for the best. My underwater photography got better when the digital age.

you know, because then it was easier to shoot multiple pictures. You weren't limited to 24 or 36 depending on which film you bought. So that's where my photography, underwater photography definitely improved was when it got to the digital age.

Brittany (35:50)

Did you find that you had any good photos from your Upei trip?

Chris (35:56)

Nothing that I would call like that wall hanger, you know? But what's exciting is I've been back to Uepi numerous times since. I'm sorry, Uepi is the island in the Solomon Islands. looking back on the pictures, there were things that I'd seen on these recent trips that I was equally as excited to see now as I was 25, 26 years ago, whatever it was now.

⁓ One of those at clown trigger fish, which I remember as a kid seeing them in pet stores for like $150 again in the 90s $150 for a little tiny fish was like, my God, I'll never be able to afford that. But such a cool fish. And then going to Uepi and seeing a clown trigger. And since I've gone every year since I've seen a clown trigger and it's just, and there's only one spot one dive I see it, but it's been really, again, just brought back so many memories from that very first trip. You know, so

Yeah, that first trip again, Life Chain, because it got me into photography. It's where I met my wife. We didn't know each other prior to that class. I was a commuter. She lived on campus. We never really crossed paths. And we never took a class, surprisingly, together. And we met on that trip, and we've been married now 20-something years. I say 20-something, she doesn't know either. It's like 22, 23, somewhere around there. But long enough. And I've gotten opportunities to go back.

⁓ which has been wild. So now my other gig is organizing dive trips to the Solomon Islands, to this amazing little island. And it all started from that photography.

Brittany (37:33)

I'm picturing you going into Costco buying these big boxes now of film and then trying to pack them to travel across the world with. I mean, when you're packing, something has to be sacrificed.

Chris (37:48)

It wasn't the film. It definitely wasn't the film. Clothing was sacrificed. I'm like, I'm gonna be on these islands. I don't need to be anything fancy, you know. Because yeah, you're limited on how much you could travel with because as you get closer to these islands, you're getting smaller and smaller planes and runways of grass and things like that. it became, yeah, back then it was a thing. yeah, but the film was definitely not staying behind. And because I didn't have the underwater housing and all that stuff, I had room there too, you know.

Brittany (38:18)

Do remember when you transitioned from film to digital?

Chris (38:22)

Oof, that was probably, I think I got my first digital camera, I want to say it was probably like 15, maybe 15 years ago. know, underwater photography equipment gets expensive, you know, and I was not making a lot of money at the aquarium. Fish Guy Photos wasn't making any money at that time. And it was just, yeah, so I just kind of slowly got there and eventually I was like, all right, I'm just going to make the sacrifice. And I bought a, it was a Canon G7 in Ikelite housing with one little strobe. And that camera was great. I got a lot of great wall hanger pictures with that camera. And then I ended up upgrading to, I think, a G16. And then that was really good. And now shooting a Sony, ⁓ Sony RX100 VII ⁓ in Ikelite housing and strobes and stuff. just every upgrade, or every new camera is a slight upgrade on the last, you know, and just kind of keep getting better. But yeah, like,

You talk about the bricks of film and now I just bring two SD cards that have 10,000 photos in each card and know, hours of video and stuff. So yeah, it's a lot different now.

Brittany (39:31)

So each time you upgraded, always got a dive housing. And you mentioned a strobe. Was that something that you ended up incorporating over time or did you start out using lighting?

Chris (39:35)

Yeah. Yeah, started out with lighting, you know, because when I was in college at that trip, they didn't have a strobe on the camera and, you know, things are kind of blue, you don't have any color. And more so up here because the water is much darker, so you kind of really need the strobe. But because the water is much darker up here and a lot more stuff in the water, shooting with strobes can be a little bit difficult. You get a lot of back scatter and things like that. you're not generally shooting at distance. You know, I'm not taking a picture of a fish, like a...

school of striped bass that's 10 feet away from me with a strobe and everything kind of just also need to all these little like stars in the water because there's all sorts of little dust and stuff so So I've also appeared. I try to do a lot more video also Because you can get away without the the bright strobes. Yeah

Brittany (40:29)

Do you use a different camera for your video?

Chris (40:31)

No,

pretty much the same all the cameras had a switch between film and video ⁓ The Sony is pretty decent, but the problem with a lot of the videos. It's not as you still The low light is an issue. So, know, either you know, you need that strobe or You kind of deal with a little bit of blue in there. So the next upgrade will be something that has a better video camera I think yeah

Not yet. Not yet. You know, I've been playing with different stuff here, like even just GoPros and stuff, but I'm not sure. I'm not quite ready for the upgrade just yet. I got this new Sony, I think, two years ago, so I want to see if I get one more season out of it before I upgrade.

Brittany (41:12)

It's fair.

You mentioned Uepi, the Solomon Islands, and how impactful that trip was for you. When do you return? How often do you return to the Solomon Islands?

Chris (41:25)

So when we left that island, I said I just met my wife, we just started like kind of dating after that and we always start like we gotta go back. It was just such a magical place. It's on the edge of the world. It's so far, so remote. And again, it was just a magical, for us, that was the first time I'd ever left the country. I always say it's the first time I ever left the East Coast. know, then like a Florida trip, was the first I'd And we always said we gotta go back, we gotta go back.

Realistic we don't like didn't know if we'd ever get back there and then our professor from the back in the day Steve Tettleback Reached out to us, and he's retired Retired now, but he goes I'm planning a reunion trip back to Uepi. He goes that place was amazing He had that same feeling like we had it was such a magical place. He goes I'm planning a reunion trip I in I mean candy were like my wife candy like Yeah, we're in we don't have we're pay for it. Well, but we're gonna figure it out and we and we did

and 18 of us went back. So colleagues from Stony Brook, former students from LIU that went, it was just as beautiful as we remembered. And it was the same family running the island, except it was their son and his wife, who he met on the island, running it with their three kids. So we went back in 2023, had an amazing time. I hit it off with the

⁓ the owner's son now, Jason, his wife Katie, and we hit it off with them. We had a very similar story and everything, and when we got back, they reached out and said, hey, can you give us a call? It was a big time difference zone. It's it's tomorrow there right now, you know? So we made a video chat one night, and they pitched, hey, we love what you're doing on social media. And again, this is where the photography, those photos change things, because...

They're like, we love what you're doing. We love that in fact that you're educating people. We love your vibe. We're trying to do something different here on the island. We want to bring like-minded people to the island, and not just a dive trip. It's like an educational dive trip. And you and your wife are both naturalist educators. So my wife also ⁓ is in this field. She's the curator of marine mammals and birds at the aquarium. So she's also a marine biologist and does a lot of educational stuff. So what do you think?

I think it's awesome and I'm going to work on it. And the first round I were able to get, was eight of us altogether that went on this trip and it worked out perfectly. We did some lectures. I did a lecture about fish at night. Candy did a lecture at night. The family talked about some of the work that they're involved with with manta rays and just living off off grid. And it was super successful. The people loved it. And when we were leaving, Jason K. like, so next year? I'm like,

Yeah, and we went back last year this past January and there were 11 of us that went and it was such a great trip that two of the people on this trip went the year before like we're going back if you're going So again, there were 11 of us this trip. We went for a few more nights so the first week the first time was 10 nights this time we did 13 nights because It literally is on the other side of the world. It took us four planes in a boat It was 38 hours from my doorstep to their doorstep

24 hours were in the air So it's pretty remote. So we said all right, we'll stay there a little longer and again it was it was awesome and They said hey next year and I'm like you bet I've already got two people signed up And actually two other people signed up were two people that went on the first trip So again, they loved it so much. They couldn't make it last year So they're going this year and I got half a dozen other people that are very interested We just got to you know, get them locked in but it's amazing. I mean even on these trips, so I got people that don't dive

They just snorkel and they're seeing sharks and turtles and like this one lady went she's like, my I all I did was snorkel and she goes I saw clownfish I saw this I saw groupers she saw everything, you know, cuz this island It's on the Marovo Lagoon, which is the world's largest saltwater lagoon And it's one of the few islands where there's a deep water channel, you know, there's a bunch of islands that Form the lagoon, but most of them are just shallow

This one in the middle of this lagoon, of this channel, I think is 350, 400 feet. You know, and it's not wide. It's maybe a quarter mile wide at the most. So it's this really deep channel. So there's a lot of water flow that goes through there. Once you get outside, it's 7,000 feet of water. So it's just all wall diving, which personally, I love wall diving because you can go down to depth and slowly work your way back up. So we're getting 75 minute, 80 minute bottom times.

You know, just swimming up this wall. Then when you get to your safety stop, you're still diving. There's all sorts of cool stuff to see. So we're getting these really long dives. We get back to the dive dock, which is literally five minutes away. think the, well, the normal longest boat trip is a 20 minute trip, just to the other side of island. When I say normal, it's because we do one day where we take a full day, and it's an hour boat drive, boat ride, where we go to one of the only vertical shipwrecks in the world. It was a

Brand-new fishing boat brand-new maiden voyage hit a reef Kind of sunk halfway, and then they tried to fix it and it went straight down. It's straight up and down on the wall And it's amazing on this little deserted island that we have this barbecue picnic lunches Nobody on this island the island is size of this room It's you know it's a little bit bigger, but and then we went from there to dive a collapsed lava tube in this lagoon like you get there And it's like all these trees, and this is a little tiny channel

and you get in and it drops down to like 200 feet and it's just this big cavern. And then on the way back we stop at Sege Airport, which was a big part of World War II, and there's a World War II fighter jet and a bomber right off the runway. The bomber still has a bomb in the cradle, it's upside down. So we did that. So that was a long day, but all the other boat trips, less than a minute, two minutes, we're on the boat, we just go out to the point, we drop in, and it's all there. Then we get back to the dock and we snorkel.

Like we're snorkeling with sharks and rays and all sorts of stuff. So, kayaking, paddle boarding. So it's just an amazing thing. They make all the food there. Everything is sourced locally. It's just, yeah. And then we do educational programs. I talk about coral reef biology, fish biology, so people know what to look for. I did one on reef critters. Candy did one about the birds that are on the island. The family talked about the manta ray, the reef mantas that they study. ⁓

living off grid, how they found this little island, you the family's Australian. So it became just more than just a dive trip. It's like I said, everyone was super excited to like get to the dining hall and see the lecture and learn about stuff. it's, it's become super popular. And like I said, I'm already planning to go back next January. You know, I don't want to miss this summer. I want to do some diving here, but I can't wait to get back. yeah, it's been, and that's where I mean the life changing, like to have this opportunity to go.

all the way across the world. It's been awesome.

Brittany (48:37)

Yeah, to come full circle like that is going to be very special.

Chris (48:40)

So Fish Guy Photos is branched out from just outside my backyard also, we're going to go some cool stuff.

Brittany (48:48)

When you went back, did it feel like that area was almost like stuck in time where it seemed so similar to the first time?

Chris (48:57)

To a point, yeah. I mean, there were giant clams that I remember, like when I say giant, like four foot clams that were there in 99 that were still there when we went back this time. There's a picture I have of Candy wearing a red skin, dive skin, swinging from a vine on the trail to the dive shop. The vine is still there. It's not this skinny anymore, it's like this. But we recreated the image of her swinging on the vine.

So yeah, it was very similar. The cottages are new They've knocked all the old cottages down the first time we went in in in 23 We stayed in one of the old cottages there were two or three of them still there and it was they're still beautiful But it was like wow, this is where we you know hung out as college kids They've now knocked them all down and they're these brand new Gorgeous cottages that they've built in but there's only six of them So that's the thing too while we're there the only people are on the island of the family run it

the workers and anybody that came on my trip. So you're not dealing with, well, maybe this is gonna be somebody I don't like from another, no, it's just the cool people that I bring on the trip. it's been awesome, super amazing opportunity, yeah.

Brittany (50:11)

So Chris, I'm going to ask you a few closing questions. Some of them are going to be a little bit heavier than others. ⁓ When you look back at your experiences in your career, is there anything that you would have said to the student that was writing and getting those red ink papers back to try and encourage them to go into marine science and to stick with writing?

Chris (50:17)

Bring it.

Well, the high school me would have never even in a million years thought about writing or wasn't writing and didn't want to even hear about writing. But the high school me definitely wanted to be a marine biologist, 100%. That was like, the second grade me wanted to be a marine biologist. The problem I had with that was I had no support. My teachers, my guidance counselors, all were telling me I was making a mistake. This is not, you shouldn't be doing this. There's no money in it. There's no jobs.

blah blah blah blah. You know, it was just, it was painful because I'm like, I don't know what else to do. I take these stupid like, I forget what they call those tests to tell you what you're going to be and I'm like, I'm not an accountant. hate math, you know? So, but my parents were the only ones that were like, you want to be a marine biologist? Go to school for marine biology. Like, that's what you want to do? Do it. That's what I would tell myself. Like, don't listen to the teachers. They tell you, you're not, you're making a mistake. You got to, at the end of the day, they do what you want to do because

If you want to do it, you'll do it. You know, I didn't want to be an accountant. So I would have never have succeeded at doing that because I didn't want to do it. So that would be my thing is just, just do it. If you want to do something, you got to just go for it. Like, and not have a backup. Like I didn't have a backup. And I think sometimes you have a backup. It's easy to fall back on a backup, but like, no, I'm putting all my energy into, I want to be a marine biologist. I mean, as a kid, young kid, I would say I wanted to be a marine biologist. I was going to go to Southampton college.

and I wanted to work for Okinos. Southampton College was well known worldwide for their marine science program, so they were in the news. That's where my mental part was like, ⁓ marine science, Southampton, I gotta go to Southampton. Okinos was, they're not here anymore, but it was what the New York Marine Rescue Center is today, was Okinos in the 80s into early 90s. They were the Marine Rescue Center. And there was a guy named Sam Sadov who was the head of Okinos.

And he was on the news. Anytime there was a marine biology thing, there was Sam Sadoff. So I was like, I'm gonna go to Southampton College and I'm gonna work for Okinos, because that's what I knew. And I did both of those. You know, I went to Southampton and I was staffed with Okinos before they went bankrupt and folded and turned it to the Riverhead Foundation. And I was staffed with them. You know, but it was, I did it. I didn't just like, oh, I'll listen to my guidance counselor. They don't know what I want to do. And I tell students this whole time, they ask me for advice and I'm like, I'll give them my advice and I'll give them what...

Did to get where I am But at end of the day they got to do what's best for them, you know They got to make the decision what they want to do not what their parents Want them to do like it's a difference between your parents telling you what to do and supporting what you want to do You know, my parents never told me what to do. They just said you want to be marine biologist will support you You know, so just doing it, you know and getting there, you know, it's not gonna be easy never easy But at the end of the day, you'll make yourself happy

So that would be advice to young fish guy.

Brittany (53:39)

When people think about how they can make an impact on being better stewards of either their backyard or the ocean or the bay, what would be one recommendation you would give them to start going towards that stewardship?

Chris (54:00)

Educate yourself. know, really... education will solve so many of these problems, you know, and it just... educate yourself on what's around you, what's going on, what some of the problems are. You know, it's hard to pick one particular thing, because I also think, kind of to my point before, if someone tells you to do something that you're not happy about, well then, I don't you might not put your all into it, but then if you...

learn about something or a problem that you're seeing, you might put more energy into fixing that problem because it's something you're passionate about, something you care about. I think just trying to better educate yourself on not even, like I said, not even just negative things, just, what bird is that that comes to my bird feeder? You know, just learn a little bit about that bird. We'll get that ball rolling to then say, ⁓ what about that bird? What about this bird?

Why am I not seeing any more birds this year? Is there a problem? Oh, there's this avian flu. Like, so you can, you know, I think starting that process will get you in deeper.

Brittany (55:08)

If someone never looked beneath the surface of the water, like Shinnecock Bay, for example.

What would you tell them that they're missing out on?

Chris (55:22)

I think if people didn't look under the surface, I think they're just gonna miss the connection with under the surface to what's going on on the land. It's all connected. And again, I think putting your mask on, even just to snorkel and just seeing a shallow eelgrass bed, just seeing everything that's going on in there, and then relating that to the health of the bay.

the fact that you want to swim in that water to look at that because now it's healthy because of that. I I think that's part of it, ⁓ just making that connection. But yeah, I mean, guess looking under the surface would just give people a better appreciation of the big picture and how everything is interconnected, how our effect on land affects these ecosystems underwater that we might not even think about. Again, there's that out of sight, out of mind, right? ⁓

If I don't see it, then is it really a problem? So putting their head underwater and seeing this other world that they're not familiar with, again, might make them think twice before. We'll go back to my favorite, fertilizing the lawn. think ⁓ if people really realize that impact, just like the balloons, when people start seeing the impact that a balloon release has, they think twice before buying those balloons, right? So I think it's the same thing if they...

Put on that mask, see this other world of just awesomeness, you know, all these cool things down there. They might think twice when it comes to decisions on land. They might step back and say, all right, let me think this through. I really, does this really need it? What's the impact it has? What's the negative impact? ⁓ well the fertilizer's run off, harmful algal blooms, can kill eelgrass, which kills scallops. I love scallops, they're delicious. Or,

I love scallops, they got those bright blue eyes, you know, so I think there's that connection of just the land to the sea, again, of sight, out of mind. So put your head down there and put it in your mind so you can get a better idea of it.

Brittany (57:30)

We didn't really dive into your geek talks too much. No. But you started the geek talks. Do you mind just summarizing that? Yeah. I'm realizing, wait, we should talk about that.

Chris (57:43)

Yeah, so talking about community, know, mean community for my Fish Guy Photos is huge and part of a branch of that community is something I started just over 10 years ago now called Geek Talks. Well, 10 years ago it was called Nature Talks. Now it's called Geek Talks, but it's a lecture series at a brewery. So I like beer and I might frequent local breweries.

And in Riverhead, there was a brewery called Mustache Brewing Company, and I was good friends with Matt and Laurie, the owners. And I was hanging out there on a Thursday night, having a pint after work. And I said to him, like, hey, what if we did something different on Thursday? Like, what if I did one of my lectures here at the brewery? We'll call it Drinking with the Fish Guy. I'll bring a screen, a projector, we'll set up some chairs on the lawn, and we'll just have this, thing. Maybe we can get a local food truck to come by and sell some food.

Like it's a slow night for you guys and you know, maybe it'll bring in some business They went for it. They said yeah, why not? We got nothing to lose. We're here on Thursday. Anyway, a Hundred people showed up, you know, so I already had a following at that point So when I election I mentioned hey, there's gonna be this thing at a brewery With a pulled pork food truck. It was maple tree barbecue They were gonna do sliders and I'm talk about fish under the stars like I said a hundred people showed up blankets and chairs and

Holy cow, it was crazy. It was a better night than a Friday night there, you know? And they like, we gotta, let's do this again. So we did it again. And a hundred people showed up and then summer was over and then we really couldn't be outside. It was cold and they didn't have a big tasting room. So the following summer we did a few more and again, equally as popular. I'm gonna jump ahead here, but they then got a bigger tasting room. So we were able to do them year round indoors and then COVID hit.

They didn't survive COVID. But a former brewer with them, Rob Raffa, he bought the business and turned it into what's called now Uber Geek Brewing Company. And I reached out to him, I said, hey, I'd really like to continue this. What do you think? goes, 100%, I'm in, let's do it. So we changed it from nature talks to geek talks, because I thought it fit better with the term, but also I was running out of, personally running out of talks. ⁓

And I would start bringing in some colleagues and friends that were doing interesting stuff. And some of them were not fishy people. They were non-fishy people. And ⁓ we started doing every other week year round. And again, I've been doing these now for over 10 years. We just finished our 10-year anniversary tour, as we call it. And we're right now, again, doing more lectures. ⁓ But they're everywhere. So like the next one's coming up is about the neuroscience of drinking beer.

So I got a bunch of neuroscientists from Stony Brook that are going to talk about this. I had a colonial period person that talked about colonial cooking. I had a historic baseball person who talked about 1800s baseball. There are so many nerdy, geeky topics out there that I just can reach out to all these people and bring them in. And it's created an amazing community of people. You know, every other Thursday at that brewery, I can count on at least 40 regulars.

that are gonna be there no matter what's going on, no matter the topic. And then it swells to 150, down to 40, depending on the speaker. generally, said bare minimum is at least 40 people. And the last couple talks, we've had at least 80 to 100 people at the talk. So again, it's my way of giving back too, because I also bring in lot of our grad students to speak. And I think one of the biggest problems facing the world

when it comes to environmental issues is it's scientists telling the world what's wrong as scientists. You can't be a scientist to tell people what's wrong because not everyone's a scientist. So they don't get the terms and the knowledge that's being shared. So you got to be a better storyteller. So, know, perfect example, I'd work with a grad student for three, four, five years and at their defense,

I have no idea what they're talking about, because it's all way over my head, because I said earlier, I'm not technically a scientist. So then I realized, I'm like, you know, we gotta get better communicators. So I'd asked these grad students to give lectures. I said, but there's a rule. You can't be a scientist. No charts, no graphs, no statistics, no Latin names, none of that. Throw it out. I want pictures and videos and tell a story about your research, why you do it, why it's important, what we can do to help. Again, be a storyteller.

And for some of these students, they've nailed it. They get it great and they go on to lecture at other places. So now I got competition, which is shoot me in the foot a little bit. it's great to see them getting out there because when they presented a conference with their peers, everybody in the room knows what the problems are. They know how to fix the problems. They're not the ones that need to know. It's the public. It's been great and everyone has the fun. And to the point, it's been so successful that I'm already planning through November.

And right now it's mid-March and I'm already booking dates into November because I have a waiting list of people to go. So it's been endless with it. But again, the topics are all over the place. I had one person, they've reached out, they're a photographer at old buildings, abandoned buildings, but they also connect the history of those buildings. That sounds like a great Halloween theme. So yeah, they're all over the place, but it's been great. It's been awesome. And again, it's building that community.

Brittany (1:03:21)

How did you know that photographs, videos would be a better replacement than charts and graphs when speaking to the public?

Chris (1:03:29)

They just don't make sense. know, like a chart and graph, you could put it up there and there's all these dots and these lines and these bars and unless you're trained, you don't know what that means. ⁓ For a perfect example, had a student pitch me for next semester, a geek talk, and she gave me the presentation to look over and it was great, except for like four slides and they were just these charts and these statistics and R values and I don't even know what this stuff was. I had to look it up.

So I wrote her back, said, look, I love everything except slides, X, Y, Eliminate the charts and graphs, because these people are not dumb, but they're not scientists. So it's like you gotta talk to them in a way that they're gonna understand, so it sticks. And I said, it's not easy to do, but try to rework these slides. I said, I'm gonna give you an opportunity, but you need to work these slides. And she wrote back, wow, that's ⁓ a great idea, great advice, I love it, I'm gonna work on that, I'm in.

But again, it's getting them to think outside the box. also tell a lot of them too, like this is the opportunity to tell a story that you can't tell at a conference. Like people can relate to mistakes, things that you made, you know, like she made, she, on our slide, she had a thing where they were grinding oysters and when they were grinding, she would just pull a shirt up. She goes, Oh, funding was short. We didn't have dust masks, you know, just silly little thing. But people laugh and then they're paying attention and they hear the story and they can relate to you. So,

So yeah, so it's not easy for everybody, but again, those charts and graphs just doesn't tell a story unless you're a scientist.

Brittany (1:05:05)

When people specialize in a particular topic, it's sometimes really challenging for them to take that hat off. I'm sure you've encountered students that have pitched you lecture ideas that maybe have a tough time adjusting, and you end up giving them feedback over and over again. How do you, like, do you use an analogy or a metaphor to get them to realize that not everybody is a scientist and they're not a specialist in all things also?

Chris (1:05:34)

just like to compare it to other stuff that they might be familiar with. Like I know cars. We all have cars. They all break. And we take it to the shop and the mechanic knows what's wrong and will explain it to you. But like, I don't know what this means. Like I don't know what the pistons and the... I don't know. But are you dumb? Because you don't know. You just didn't spend... So I try to relate it to stuff that people see every day. Like that mechanic is not dumb because he doesn't understand your charts and graphs and statistics on

filter flow rates of whatever bivalve you're studying. Just like you can't work on that engine. You don't know anything about that engine because you didn't study that like that person did. So it's like you gotta really just digest it so they understand it and lose the idea that they're, do I have to dumb this down? Like that is the worst thing to say because then again now you're like.

on your high horse, that you're smarter. No, you're not smarter, you just study this, that you know more about that than they do, just like they know more about this than you do. ⁓ that's what I try to get to these kids, is let them know. And honestly, the grad students and students, for the most part, get it. Sometimes the faculty. Sometimes it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks type of thing, you know, but.

But I truly do believe we as scientists need to be better communicators, you know, and I think I said the geek talks have been super successful with that.

Brittany (1:07:03)

Thanks, Chris. Last question.

What is it about Long Island waters that you think deserves more attention?

Chris (1:07:11)

that there's a lot happening below those waves. Again, we think of places like Upi, where you see all these bright, colorful fish and sharks and turtles, but you go here, and again, I go to your picture and I look, I'm like, I can't see anything. And if that was a picture of Upi, there'd be these turquoise water and I could see all these different colors and deep blues. So people see that and they think, ah, it's just dirty water. There's nothing there, but there's so much stuff below that sea. So I think that's what I really

want people to understand there's a lot happening here. You we might not have the bright colors of the tropics, but we definitely have quite the diversity. I mean, between sharks and whales and turtles and, you know, all the different fish species and crabs and invertebrates. I mean, there's stuff that I still to this day find. I'm like, I didn't know we had that here, you know. ⁓ There's a lot happening below those dirty water that we have around Long Island.

Brittany (1:08:11)

Okay, I lied. I know I said one more question, but I just thought of one. ⁓ You wear so many hats. We've spoken about this before. Marine conservationist, marine biologist, photographer. I can keep going. But when you hear those careers, it's so common for people to choose to go down to Florida or someplace southern to study.

Chris (1:08:13)

Yeah, no worries.

Brittany (1:08:40)

is you know the visibility and the water clarity is greater. And the warmth, yeah. I should definitely be wanting to point that out.

Chris (1:08:43)

and the warmth.

Yeah,

I believe me every winter I think to myself, why am I not in Florida? It's a lot warmer. a marine biologist. I can be somewhere tropical and not dealing with a frozen saltwater bay, you know?

Brittany (1:09:00)

Okay.

So what brings you to keep coming back or to stay here, I should say?

Chris (1:09:07)

There's a lot here. There's just a lot to offer. And yes, we're crowded and there's a lot of people and stuff, but it's just, there's so much neat stuff happening. And I think what's neat about Long Island, as opposed to Florida, we do have a change of the seasons. Yes, the Bay is frozen. There's not a whole lot of fishy stuff going on, but there's a lot of other stuff that goes on, seals and winter birds and winter ducks and things like that.

You and then all those things disappear and then we get tropical fish and sharks and whales. So I think that change is good also. think, and maybe I'm wrong, but I think if I was just in one spot, I might get bored because it's kind of, kind of the same thing. Yeah, you can have seasonal changes where things might be different from time to time, but I like the change of the seasons. And what's nice about Long Island is we've got the big oceans right there and a

Short drive without traffic, you got the mountains. So there's that change. Florida's pretty flat. So again, that's where I kinda like Long Island, because we have a little bit of everything here. And it changes, which keep things interesting.

Brittany (1:10:23)

Thank you Chris, I promise that was the final question. That's right. So for people that want to look up your social media account, where can they find you?

Chris (1:10:33)

Fishguyphotos.com and I'm on every other social media at Fish Guy Photos. So Facebook, Instagram, X, I'm not on X a whole lot, but I'm there. TikTok, YouTube, Vimeo, and I'm working on a Patreon. So I just need a few more, find a few more minutes in my day to try to figure that out. But Fish Guy Photos on all the social media.

Brittany (1:10:55)

And if they want to see one of your, the geek talks or have one of your lectures, where should they go for that? Or how do they contact you?

Chris (1:11:03)

Yeah, so I gotta get better at putting that up where I'm actually speaking. Generally, Instagram stories I throw a lot about where I'm speaking. On Facebook, under my events tab, I'm trying to keep up with all the events. But you can also, for like the Geek Talks, for example, you can go to the Ubergeek Brewing Company website and have all those events listed there. Or just reach out to your local library.

club, organization, senior home, whatever it might be, and have them reach out to me to speak. Many of the venues I speak at are because my followers request it. So if you want me in your neck of the woods, reach out.

Brittany (1:11:45)

Awesome. Thank you, Chris.

Chris (1:11:46)

Thank you, this is awesome, thank you so much.

Brittany (1:11:49)

Thank you for listening to the Dive Long Island podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, make sure to follow and subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. For sponsorship opportunities, guest ideas, or to connect, you can reach me at infodivelongisland@gmail.com and follow along on social media  @divelongisland. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you between dives.