© Bruce Hall, Garibaldi

Photographing a Garibaldi, the largest of the damselfish species, is like taking a picture of the sunset. Very common. Bright orange with a heart-shaped tail, the fish is easy to spot even for a visually impaired person. I have photographed Garibaldi in California waters more times than I can count, but not at this range. In 2022, I bought a new camera with remarkably effective eye-detection autofocus. As I moved toward a shallow reef at the Casino Dive Park on Catalina Island, several male Garibaldi approached my face. I took a quick burst of photographs, then backed away so as not to disturb a likely nesting area. “Adult male Garibaldi carefully construct circular nest sites about one foot in diameter in shallow reef habitats… The more well-prepared and maintained the nests are, the more likely a female will choose that nest to deposit her eggs for fertilization by the hosting male. Once the eggs are fertilized, the male continues to guard the nest, often warning divers of their close proximity with a loud thumping noise… The Garibaldi is the California State fish and protected from fishing.” (U.S. National Park Service). The Garibaldi tilts to the left, hiding its left eye. Its fins are like outstretched wings. The strobe light accentuates the orange peel texture of the bump on its steeply sloping head, its right eye staring at the camera. I am so close you can see inside the small mouth: large lips, tiny row of jagged teeth. I chose this photo from the series because, against the blurred background of kelp and water, the fish looks like it’s flying right out of the frame.

Bruce Hall is a legally blind photographer, underwater photographer, and disability advocate. Hall lives in Santa Ana, California and exhibits his photography internationally. Bruce and his wife, Valerie Hall, have published a book, Immersed: Our Experience with Autism, examining their twin sons’ severe autism. Immersed captures their experiences through words and images. Hall’s work has been published in numerous textbooks and magazines including Discover Diving, Nature’s Best Photography, Spirit Magazine, Men’s Journal, and National Geographic, as well as shown in art exhibitions internationally. In 2010, The Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division purchased a portfolio of photographs from Hall’s Autism in Reflection series for their permanent collection. Bruce was featured in a short documentary for HBO, Dark Light: The Art of Blind Photographers 2010, produced by Corinne Marrinan and directed by sports photography legend Neil Leifer. Hall is featured in the full-length documentary film, Shot in the Dark by German filmmaker Frank Amann, 2017. In 2018, Bruce was featured in the Apple “Behind the Mac” International Advertising campaign. Hall is focused nowadays on his underwater photography.

Follow Bruce on Instagram: @Hall.Bruce

© Bruce Hall, Catalina Platform Blacksmith Gorgonian

When I enlarge this photograph on my computer screen, I see how my camera’s strobe lights illuminate a blacksmith damselfish, its perch-shape revealing blue-silver fins edged with violet. The damselfish is in the top right foreground and swims down toward a tangle of coral-encrusted limbs.

I have been diving off Catalina Island, California for nearly four decades and have watched a sunken swimming platform within the Casino Point Underwater Dive Park be consumed by sea life. The submerged structure appears at an angle in this horizontal photograph, its arms and legs resting on the seabed at about eighty feet. It is covered in light-brown coral, their branching tendrils accentuating the fanlike patterns of gorgonians, corals composed of cylindrical growths. The largest gorgonian is dark red speckled with white and is surrounded by smaller orange and gold gorgonians.

This would be a typical Catalina dive photograph, but the strobe-lit blacksmith damselfish and corals command our attention. Three smaller fish swim among luminous green kelp blades in a triangular opening. The closest catches the light, its fins etched in violet. Two more swim beneath, flat shapes silhouetted against the sea floor. In the distance, coral-covered vertical and horizontal girders intersect before opaque deep water. The vividly lit foreground against darker backdrop gives the scene tension. I photograph to see what I have seen. I move within inches of my monitor’s screen to find detail and hidden treasure.

© Bruce Hall

This photograph of Jack dancing in a spray of water on a sunny day means much to me on so many levels. My son was aged 8 or 9 and for the first time living in a group home crisis facility, due to profound autism, developmental disability, and self-injurious behavior. Jack is non-speaking and lives with a constellation of challenges. The facility has a nurse, a behavioral psychologist and good support staff who understood that Jack loves the sensory joy of water.

Jack launches a joyful spinning jump into a backlit burst of water droplets. He is the vivid centre of a horizontal composition. Jack’s head is thrown back into the warm sun, his lips parted, his blonde hair drenched. In his sunlit leap, he looks like he hovers above the pathway. His arms cross at the elbows and his fingers curl as if he strums the water. He wears sandals and green knee-length swimming shorts, his raised right leg thrown in front of his left. Jack can’t tell us how he feels, but he certainly shows us.

Behind him, a wide-trunked tree with ridged dark-grey bark makes Jack stand out, emphasizing his exhilaration. Blue-painted metal railings to left and right remind us of the institutional setting. When I enlarge the image on my computer screen, in the distance I see an adolescent boy looking toward us from the home’s covered veranda. Each time I look at this photograph, I am reminded of a sea of frustration and tension that water washes away—the moment when all the negative feelings disappear.