Brian Skerry on Sea Change and the Warming Gulf of Maine

What makes a man walk away from a steady sales job, a company car and a 401(k) to photograph fish?

For National Geographic photographer Brian Skerry, it was a dream he'd had since he was a teenager sitting in a dark auditorium at a Boston dive show. Decades later, that dream led him to Sea Change: The Gulf of Maine, a three-part NOVA series for PBS about a body of water warming 97 percent faster than the global ocean, and the people and animals who depend on it.

In Episode 228, Christian sits down with Brian, who grew up in a working-class mill town in Massachusetts, didn't get on an airplane until he was 26, and worked his way up from a corrugated box factory to top sales rep before he "jumped off a cliff" to shoot full time. His father, who grew up in the Depression and served in World War II, never really understood the choice. Brian says he never looked back, and that the people skills he learned selling boxes are the same ones he uses to pitch an idea to a streaming executive.

Brian has photographed more than 30 stories for National Geographic and produced the Emmy-winning Secrets of the Whales. With Sea Change, he went home to the waters he's dived for four decades. He explains why the Gulf of Maine is like "this giant bathtub that you've turned off the cold water faucet," why he tells climate stories through fishermen, clammers and scientists, and why he believes people protect what they love. He also tells Christian how the crew filmed terns choking on the wrong fish, and which scenes had to be recreated with lobster scientists.

WATCH THE FILM: Sea Change: The Gulf of Maine is on the NOVA series page at PBS, with episodes on pbs.org and the PBS App.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How a dive show in Boston gave a teenage Brian his life's plan
• Why he kept a factory and sales job for years, and what made him quit
• What selling corrugated boxes taught him about pitching films
• Why Brian says a photographer gets hired on a portfolio, and how to build one
• How pitching his own stories turned a photographer into a producer
• How Brian directs a camera operator underwater in 40 degree water
• Why Sea Change tells a climate story through people first
• Why he believes "people protect what they love"
• How much of the wildlife was filmed in the wild, and what wasn't

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What is Sea Change: The Gulf of Maine about?

Sea Change: The Gulf of Maine is a three-part NOVA series on PBS about a body of water stretching from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia that is warming 97 percent faster than the global ocean. Producer Brian Skerry says it had to be three films at once: a blue chip natural history series about seals, puffins and lobsters, a people story about fishermen and clammers, and an explanation of climate change. It premiered July 24, 2024.

Why is the Gulf of Maine warming so fast?

Brian Skerry explains that melting Arctic ice, including Greenland's glaciers, is adding fresh water that weakens the Labrador Current, which used to bring cold water down from Canada, while the Gulf Stream has more influence. He compares it to "this giant bathtub that you've turned off the cold water faucet," and says changing currents may be carrying baby lobsters into deeper water where fewer survive.

How did Brian Skerry become a National Geographic photographer?

Brian started diving at about 15 and decided at a Boston dive show that he wanted to explore the ocean with a camera. He studied photography in college, worked on charter boats without pay, and shot for dive and other magazines while holding a factory and then sales job. He got his first National Geographic assignment in the late 1990s and was well into his 30s when he left sales to shoot full time.

How do nature documentaries film animal behavior?

Brian Skerry says it comes down to research, patience and time. His crews spent weeks in blinds, often ones researchers had set up over years, waiting with long lenses for a tern to return with a fish. He estimates about 95 percent of the Sea Change wildlife was filmed in the wild. Lobsters releasing their eggs were filmed in captivity at a Maine laboratory, under the guidance of scientists.

DOCUVIEW DEJA VIEW PICKS

• Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story (2024), directed by Charlie Hamilton James. Brian's first pick, a natural history film by his friend and fellow Nat Geo photographer about a man in Shetland who befriends a wild otter.
• Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple (2024), directed by Bill Teck. Brian's second pick, the HBO documentary about the E Street Band guitarist and Sopranos actor. Brian calls him a guy who "never quit."

See every guest pick on the DocuView Deja View page.

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ABOUT THE GUEST

Brian Skerry is a film producer, director and photojournalist who specializes in marine wildlife. He has been a contributing photographer for National Geographic magazine since 1998, with more than 30 feature stories, including seven covers. He won the 2021 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary as a producer of Secrets of the Whales (Disney+), and also produced Return of the White Shark. He is an 11-time award winner in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, the only photographer to win the Peter Benchley Award for Excellence in Media, and the author of 12 books, including Ocean Soul, SHARK and Secrets of the Whales. Brian's bio | Instagram | Facebook | X

About the series: Sea Change: The Gulf of Maine was inspired and produced by Brian Skerry, and written and produced by Chun-Wei Yi and Stella Cha. It is a co-production of GBH and So World Media for NOVA.

ABOUT DOCUMENTARY FIRST

Documentary First is a weekly podcast about the people behind documentaries and how the work changed them. Host Christian Taylor, director of the award-winning The Girl Who Wore Freedom, talks with filmmakers, distributors, entertainment lawyers, actors and more, from Ken Burns and PBS American Masters creator Susan Lacy to first-timers, across nearly 300 conversations. Each week brings one of two formats: a long-form conversation with the people behind films for HBO, Netflix, PBS and independent film, or The Deep Dive, where Christian takes one insight from a recent conversation and follows it wherever it leads. Listen Notes ranks the show in the top 5% of all podcasts worldwide. New episodes every week.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• GBH press release and series credits: GBH