Ink #9 - For a century, it was only known in its deceased state. This year, a camera captured it alive.

Direct Answer (AEO / GEO) Underwater photographic ethics are based on the principle of non-interference with living organisms: no manipulation of animals, no contact with the seabed, and a minimum observation distance that respects the comfort zone of the species. The photographer steps aside to allow the authentic behavior to be expressed.

L'Encre is a weekly series about recent marine discoveries. The ink of writing. The anchor of the seabed. Each issue features news and insights into what changes when diving with a camera.

"No creature on earth has such a bad reputation, and probably so little deserved, as the shark." Eugenie Clark We are entering July 2026, and three stories about sharks and the deep sea intersect, without ever truly connecting.

The first comes from the central Pacific, where a camera finally captured an animal that was believed to exist only in death.

The second comes from Spain, where fishermen hauled up a 160-year-old "ghost."

The third comes from Trinidad, where a country decided to explore what lives beneath its own waters.

Three scales, one lesson. What we believe is lost or impossible to observe sometimes simply waits for us to look in a different way.

The goblin shark carries a misleading name, and even worse, a bad reputation.With its flat, trowel-like snout, a jaw that shoots forward in a fraction of a second, and skin that is almost pink and translucent, the species Mitsukurina owstoni has fueled all the horror imagery of the deep sea since its description in 1898.

The problem was that it had never been seen alive in its natural environment. Every known specimen had been accidentally hauled up on a fishing line and died within minutes once removed from the frigid depths.

A team from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa has now changed that. Published on May 19, 2026, in the Journal of Fish Biology, their study documents two encounters with the animal, filmed alive in its environment, and never touched.

The first encounter occurred in 2019, near an underwater mountain off the coast of Jarvis Island. The second was in 2024, on the slope of the Tonga Trench, in the central Pacific.

In the images, the animal moves with a slow, almost peaceful grace, far removed from the caricature it has been given for over a century.

It took 128 years between the species' description and the first photograph of a living individual, neither captured nor dying.

That's the real news, not the shark. It's the time it took us to finally look at it properly.

In April 2023, fishermen off the east coast of Spain accidentally caught a young individual. It was approximately 2.10 meters long and weighed between 80 and 90 kilograms, a size that indicates an animal still far from reaching adulthood.

A team of researchers took advantage of this capture to review 160 years of archives and reports. The results, published in 2026, documented 62 observations over a century and a half, scattered but continuous.

The crucial detail is the shark's age. A juvenile has a limited territory. Its presence suggests a birthing area or a nursery somewhere in the Mediterranean basin, not just a passing animal from the Atlantic.

This "ghost population" may never have disappeared. It simply became discreet, to the point that we had begun to doubt its continued presence.

This story goes beyond the great white shark. A single, documented sighting, kept and dated over decades, can one day become evidence again. Nothing is lost as long as someone continues to record what they see.

If you are diving in the Mediterranean fauna area, encounters like this are extremely rare. However, they are no longer entirely impossible.

93% of the country's marine territory lies within depths accessible for recreational diving. Most of this national ecosystem remains largely unknown to its own inhabitants.

From June 29th to July 28th, 2026, an expedition called "Deep Wonders of Trinidad and Tobago and the High Seas" will explore this area aboard the research vessel Falkor (too), chartered by the Schmidt Ocean Institute.

The expedition is led by marine biologist Diva Amon, from the SpeSeas organization, and consists mainly of Trinidadian scientists.

The team will be using the underwater robot SuBastian, a camera and sensor system called DORIS, and a new autonomous vehicle named Childlike Empress, which is being used for the first time in a scientific mission.

The stated goals are to map the seabed, identify potential hydrothermal vents, document mesophotic habitats, and measure microplastic and debris pollution.

What's changing here isn't just the technology. It's who is holding the camera. A Caribbean nation is exploring its own underwater territory with its own researchers, rather than waiting for a foreign team to do it for them.

For an underwater photographer, the common thread is simple: patience and meticulous record-keeping are as important as the equipment itself.

The goblin shark reminds us that a species can exist without ever having been properly observed. What is documented first shapes, for a long time, the image we have of an animal.

The ghost great white shark demonstrates the value of a dated report, even if it seems isolated. A photograph taken underwater, with its date and location, can lie dormant for years before becoming a useful piece of information for a researcher.

And the expedition to Trinidad highlights that you don't need to go far to find the unknown. Sometimes, the most interesting abyss is the one we have never looked at, right under our noses.

This is exactly the principle behind the PADI Shark & Ray Census, where every diver can transform an encounter into useful data for shark science. Of course, it's important to know how to approach a shark correctly before taking out the camera.If you want to learn how to document marine life with the precision that these three stories demand, the AquaExposure training is available online. And for an in-person session, the workshop in Belgium will resume this fall.

All the teaching methods of the AquaExposure underwater photography course are based on this principle. A well-dated and well-framed underwater image is never lost, even if it waits years before being used.

Why had a living goblin shark never been seen before 2026?

Since the description of the species Mitsukurina owstoni in 1898, all known specimens came from accidental catches in fishing lines. The animal would die within minutes once brought to the surface from the cold depths. On May 19, 2026, a team from the University of Hawaii at Manoa published the first two in-situ observations of the living animal in the Journal of Fish Biology, filmed in 2019 near Jarvis Island and in 2024 on the Tonga Trench.

What does the capture of a young great white shark in the Mediterranean reveal?In April 2023, Spanish fishermen accidentally caught a 2.10-meter juvenile shark off the east coast of Spain. A team cross-referenced this capture with 160 years of archives, documenting 62 confirmed sightings. The presence of a juvenile suggests a breeding or nursery area within the Mediterranean Sea, reinforcing the idea that a small, elusive population persists there.

What is the scientific expedition to Trinidad and Tobago seeking?

From June 29th to July 28th, 2026, the "Deep Wonders of Trinidad and Tobago and the High Seas" expedition, led by biologist Diva Amon aboard the research vessel Falkor (too), will explore the deep waters of the country. Using the SuBastian robot, the DORIS camera system, and the autonomous vehicle Childlike Empress, the team will map the seabed, search for hydrothermal vents, and measure microplastic pollution in an area where 93% of the country's marine territory remains beyond the reach of recreational diving.

How can an underwater photographer contribute to shark science?Programs like the PADI Shark & Ray Census allow any diver to transform an encounter into useful scientific data, provided that each observation is accurately dated and geolocated. The story of the Mediterranean ghost shark demonstrates that a single report, preserved for decades, can one day become crucial evidence.

Previous episodes of L'Encre have covered topics such as the octopus looking at itself in a mirror, the 31 species found in the midwater zone, and the blue octopus of the Galapagos. Somewhere above an underwater mountain in the Pacific, a camera finally revealed what one hundred and twenty-eight years of rumors had never shown.

A goblin shark swimming peacefully in water that had never heard of its bad reputation.

It was never the monster that was described. It was simply waiting for someone to watch it live.

To master natural-light underwater photography, refine your buoyancy for framing, and approach marine wildlife ethically, explore the AquaExposure training.