Chris Duncan is the videographer and content producer at Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, Ga. He has been documenting the underwater world for more than thirteen years. His photography and videography journey began at Walt Disney World where he developed his skills filming the guest immersion program at The Seas in Epcot. In 2009, he began managing the Georgia Aquarium’s Dive Immersion Program, that brings over 25,000 divers and swimmers annually through the Aquarium’s largest exhibit.
During his time on the dive team, Chris established and optimized the standard operating procedures for capturing and editing the guest experience video before the divers were back on dry land. He also filmed underwater for the Discovery Channel production “The Aquarium” on Animal Planet.
From there, his passion led to his current role on the Georgia Aquarium’s marketing and communications team. Chris’ surface, and subsurface, storytelling captures all the animal content for marketing, social, and internal usage. For Chris, combining SCUBA diving with content creation has been a dream job in the making. Throughout his formative years in Georgia and Florida, he grew up around water to the soundtrack of Jimmy Buffett on repeat. No matter the temperature, you’ll usually catch him wearing flip flops—and even though he lives in land-locked Atlanta, he’s always planning his next dive trip to seek out his first love, sharks.
Chris has been fascinated by all shark species since he was a child. They are one of his favorite animals to capture due to the intimidating reputation that cloaks their relatively calm demeanor when you approach them in a controlled manner. Underwater photography is equal parts fun and challenging. To capture this photograph, Chris said that understanding the animal’s behavior was key.
“Hammerheads are predictably unpredictable. You must always have your finger on the shutter, knowing the shot you were planning on the surface might not be the shot you get underwater. You’ll be trying to film an animal coming through a bait ball, and three hundred shots later they might just decide to pose for a close-up.”
Close up, indeed!