“Very few people have ever been as close as I have,” explains Monterey Bay Aquarium’s photographer Tyson Rininger when asked how incredible his job is. He’s had some fascinating encounters with underwater creatures big and small and has a job many photographers would envy. How many photographers can actually say they’ve spent time in an elevator with a shark?

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The one thing I’ve always struggled with when photographing fish at a public aquarium is the distortion from the thick glass that separates us from them. If I were brave enough, I’d probably go into the designated visitors’ tanks to dive with them. But I always chicken out and blame my camera’s lack of proper underwater housing. As much as I think they’re magnificent creatures, I doubt I’d ever want to get close enough to a great white shark to photograph it. For a lot of us, the choice of whether to visit an aquarium or not depends on how enticing the advertisements are. At Monterey Bay Aquarium, Tyson and the marketing team have been doing fantastic work on this front for some years now. Scroll through some of their images on a high-resolution screen, and it’s almost like you’re in front of the display themselves. In 2014, they became the first aquarium to have a Google Street View of the inside of the facility (this virtual tour is addictive).

The Essential Photo Gear Used by Tyson Rininger

Tyson told us:

Nikon D5

Nikon D850

Nikkor 24-120mm f4

Nikkor 14-24mm f2.8

Nikon 105mm f2.8 macro

Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8

Nikkor 200-500mm f5.6

I currently use Nikon cameras with Speedotron power packs and Godox portable strobes. My predecessor was entirely Canon, so that was a fun experience working together. It did give us an opportunity to compare brands in the real world and work on compatibility solutions.

The Phoblographer: Please tell us about yourself and how you got into photography. Did you have any experience with animals before joining the Monterey Aquarium?

Tyson Rininger: Hello, and thank you for the opportunity to share how imagery is produced here at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I’ve been a photographer for about 35 years and have published about a dozen books, primarily in the field of aviation. However, as with most photographers, my interests expanded to that of architecture, food, products, nature and more. I grew up in the days of film and worked with every format from 35mm, 6x6cm, 4x5in and 8x10in. As for working with animals directly, not a whole lot, but I do love animals, and I think people could tell when I first began working with the Aquarium. Though I do sometimes feel like I cheated on a test to get here since I can’t spit out the Latin names of every animal and species like our Animal Care folks can. They are truly amazing and are the heart of our institution.

The Phoblographer: Tell us how you stumbled upon this vacancy and about your first few days at the job.

Tyson Rininger: Part of my past was my involvement in working in camera stores. When I moved to Monterey, CA, in 1996, I worked for Myrick Photographic. One of our good customers was Randy Wilder, who was the current Monterey Bay Aquarium photographer at the time. We browsed his slides together following the opening of the Aquarium’s Open Sea exhibit, which features the iconic gold Sea nettle jellies on a blue background with which most people are familiar. I blurted out how I would enjoy seeing how the images were created and thus began my twenty-year adventure as a volunteer assistant photographer working with Randy. That eventually became a contract position as the workload increased and the option of hiring a second photographer was explored. Once Randy had reached his 30-year tenure, his retirement resulted in me being given the position in 2016. Randy then became my contract photographer as our roles were reversed.

The Phoblographer: How long do you think it took for the animals there ...