October 16, 2024
Q&A with Ocean Photographer Álvaro Herrero
BY: Sarah Holcomb
Álvaro Herrero, who goes by the name Mekan, is an acclaimed photographer originally from Spain. Herrero has been diving for over 18 years and has taught underwater photography masterclasses around the world. He and his work have been recognized by prestigious international photo contests such as GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Underwater Photographer of the Year, Ocean Photographer of the Year, Siena International Photo Awards, Asferico International Photo contest, and others. He is currently working in Mexico as a cave photographer.
Tell us about your career as an underwater photographer. How did you get started?
AH: I grew up in Madrid, Spain. When I was five years old, my grandfather, who lives on the coast, gave me a pair of fins, mask, and snorkel. Since then, I’ve been passionate about the ocean. I spent all my spare time going to the east coast of Spain and diving there. I worked as a diving instructor starting at age 22. When I was 27, I wanted to explore the world beyond Spain and decided to go with a colleague of mine to Thailand. I brought a compact camera along with me.
We went to a liveaboard in the Similan Islands. A liveaboard is basically a diving center on a boat, where you eat, sleep, and dive. I took photos there, and the manager of the boat really liked them. He invited me to live on the boat for free in exchange for my photography. I was already passionate about photography, but just hadn’t found a stable opportunity to do it for a living. He gave me a job and allowed me to sell my photos at the same time.
What was life like on the liveaboard?
AH: You wake up, have coffee, then dive into the water. When you come up, you have breakfast, take a nap, and jump back in again! After lunch, it’s time for another dive. It’s super fun, and you can go to remote places that aren’t possible to reach on day trips. I worked on the boat for three years and visited many places off the coasts of the Philippines, Indonesia, Polynesia, and Mexico.
You’ve photographed many species. Why were you especially drawn to whales?
AH: I’ve been drawn to whales ever since seeing them in documentaries on TV. I took my first trip to Tonga in 2010 to see whales. I was impressed by how smart they are, how they feel and perceive emotion, how they look directly at you…They are sentient animals.
In 2020, I left Indonesia to go back to Spain, but I struggled living in Madrid, always longing for the ocean. I received a message from a friend who used to live on an island in Indonesia telling me that the whale watching season was beginning. I used all my savings to move there and was able to find a job. I spent nine months photographing whales up close. Wow, talk about getting eye-to-eye with a whale. It’s remarkable.
Can you tell us more about the experience of interacting with whales?
AH: Whales aren’t aggressive but sometimes they get curious and just want to observe you. So they come very, very, very close. Then they stop. They look at you from head to toe. Sometimes they even go vertical, turn, and dance around a little bit. That interaction is truly magical. The babies are very playful and sometimes the mothers allowed us to play with their calves.
You captured some heartbreaking footage of a particular whale. Tell us about that day.
AH: It was a February day in 2022, off the coast of Baja California.
It’s always exciting when you set off because you don’t know what to expect — sometimes you’ll see killer whales, turtles, dolphins, and even sharks. We left at about 7 a.m. Halfway through the day, we saw something floating on the surface of the water. It was a humpback whale severely entangled, with a buoy and fishing line wrapped around her tail. The buoy was later confirmed to come from California’s commercial Dungeness crab fishery.
The whale was super, super skinny. She was covered in sea lice — millions of them all over her body. And her spine was bent because she was trying to compensate for her injured tail. She had probably been struggling like that for weeks, if not months, judging by how skinny she was. She was using her pectoral fins to get to the surface, breathe, and then go back underwater. It was incredibly sad.
The whale came very close to us. I think she was asking us for help. She looked in my eyes, and I felt her sadness. Her tail was completely rotten. It smelled like death. She was dying in a very slow, painful, anguishing way. My colleagues worked quickly to set the whale free from the fishing line wound tightly around her tail, but it was too late — the whale was too injured to survive. Emotionally, we felt it in our chests. I couldn’t sleep after that. I kept calling people, trying to figure out if there was anything else we could do.
Why did you title your photo of this whale “Hopeless”?
AH: Because she died shortly after that. We’re pretty certain of it. Just two or three weeks after we saw her, someone filmed a carcass of a whale being eaten by sharks close to that area.
I think “Hopeless” also speaks to a larger story. It’s not only about this whale. We’re destroying the ocean and the planet. We must face this reality.
Everyone loves whales. They’re big animals that represent the ocean. They’re significant to many different cultures. For me, this whale’s suffering represented what we’re doing to our planet. We’re slowly killing it with suffering, distress, pain. This icon of the seas — the biggest animal in the ocean — is dying slowly. We as humans are also losing part of ourselves. We must help protect nature, not only because it’s beautiful, but because we can’t live without it.
What is your aim for this photo?
AH: I felt like I had to take this photo to show the world what’s happening in our oceans. I was in the right place, at the right time, so I took it. But I’m not proud of it. For me, the goal of this image is to help people see what we’re doing to the oceans, think about it, and then take action.
