 We blink 15 to 20 times a minute. Why? We blink because our eyes haven't yet fully adapted to seeing outside of water. Our blood is at the same salinity as found in the ocean. Our bodies themselves are 70 percent water. No matter our connection or perception of the ocean, we are absolutely connected to it as a species. As JFK said, it is an interesting biological fact that each and every one of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt water in our blood that exists in the ocean. And therefore we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean and when we go back to the sea, whether to sail or to watch it, we are going back from once we came. It is irrefutable. Life on earth has and always will be molded by the oceans. Ocean currents regulate earth's temperature. Plankton and other aquatic plant species produce an upwards of 60 percent of all the oxygen found in our atmosphere. Even our forests are influenced by the sea. Seabirds, with their fish heavy diets, transfer nitrogen and essential nutrient for plant growth all the way from the open ocean to our soil and land. But what of the ocean itself? Well, I'll be quite honest with you right now. Most of what we understand as the ocean is empty. It's desert, barren, vast. Now most of the ocean may be empty but life in the ocean is not evenly spread. A quarter of all biodiversity in the ocean is found in one very special habitat. This habitat covers less than 1 percent of the sea floor but is richer in life than the luscious of rainforest and more vibrant than the busiest city nightlife. This habitat is the coral reef. The coral reef was the place of my early education, my childhood playground, my artistic muse. I've only been on this planet for 14 years but each and every single one of those years has been defined by the oceans and coral reefs. So let's talk about those last 14 years. Who am I? I'm Cruz Erdman. I was born in Bali, Indonesia. I'm an underwater photographer living in New Zealand and last year in 2019 I was awarded the title of Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year by the Natural History Museum in Britain. I love being underwater. For my 10th birthday my parents gifted me with a dive certification course but I've been diving for much longer than that. This is actually a video of my first dive ever when I was only about seven years old. I've gone better since then. The feeling of being underwater to me is like what I would imagine the first men on the moon would have felt. An alien environment. Inhospitable to human life. But the last time I checked the moon didn't have signs of life. The moonwalkers didn't step out into a world of unimaginable color and detail. They didn't float above intricate ancient corals or weave between expansive forests of kelp. The underwater world is like a dream of what we can only imagine exist in outer space but many many times more beautiful. I could say that my interest in the ocean wasn't entirely by accident as my parents' love of the sea was contagious and I was immersed in it both literally and figuratively as early as I can remember. Nearly every toy, book, puzzle and even my clothes were ocean themed. My passion was fish and my imagination was filled with all the unbelievable things I wanted to see for myself. My parents are both marine conservationists. My father is marine biologist working the better part of his life conserving the richest reefs on the planet in Raja Ampat in Indonesia. Sometimes I would sneakily skip a bit of school to go with my father on scientific dive trips looking for new species of undiscovered coral reef fishes. They're fascinating to look at. They may seem very bland and insignificant at first sight but upon closer inspection and definitely with the help of a camera flash they're actually quite incredible. To me they had interesting personalities darting in and out of their burrows. Some were vibrant and beautifully colored. Others were exquisite with impossible flourishes and I decided that they can be the cutest faces in the ocean sometimes. For instance this bunny emerges from his burrow to admire his reflection in the lens of the camera above him and this male flashirass spreads his fins and turns on his natural colorations in a flash hence the name flashirass in an attempt to oppress a man. Nature travel was always an important part of our family holidays. We always found a way to explore national parks around the world mostly underwater. We dived in all types of habitats from the sandy barren moonscapes of the Lembe Strait with its terrifying looking inhabitants to the kelp forests of New Zealand to the sprawling coral reef cities of Raja Ampat. I've encountered some of the smallest creatures visible to the human eye such as these gobies to the largest fish in the ocean the whale shark. Throughout all these trips and experiences taking underwater photographs is not something I even considered. I was the field assistant holding jars and syringes while my father caught and he photographed the new species of fish. That all changed when my dad decided to buy himself a flashy new camera. He asked me if I wanted to try my hand at photography and I said yes because why not and after a very long lecture on how much money his gear is worth and how much I have to pay if I broke it he said that I could use his old hand me down camera. I use the phrase old hand me down but this thing's kind of far from a beginner's camera. It is currently the 21st of January as of this date I have been doing underwater photography for a little bit less than two years. The photo that won me the title of young wildlife photographer of the year a blackwater shot of a big fin reef squid was taken on my second dive trip shooting underwater images just four months after I picked up a camera for the first time. I mostly do macro photography taking photo of the smallest creatures and fishes and bringing them to the screen hundreds or in this case thousands of times larger than life. This coral ghost gobie is only about the size of half your pinky finger. To me macro photography is like exploring a hidden world through much sharper eyes than my own. I've tried photographing the larger things in the ocean but for now little things are still definitely my favorite. Why? Well these little fishes have been of interest to me since I first saw them in the light that I do but as I've become older I've become more able to understand that they are actually of quite great significance to the health of the oceans and they became a subject of even greater interest to me. For instance who doesn't love whales dolphins and seals? They're charismatic and social mammals who share many of our more human behaviors. While many of us often forget that fish are animals feel pain or let alone have an affinity for them but recent studies have shown that these small cryptic coral reef fishes make an upwards of 60 percent of all fish mass consumed on coral reefs. Without them the coral reef ecosystem would crumble and starve. They are quite literally the rice of the reef the staple base food keeping coral reef ecosystems going. And growing up in Indonesia I've seen the effect of coral reefs on local communities. Some experience great fortune others struggle. Why? Well because these people rely on the ocean like it's the air they breathe. The ocean provides a constant source of food where the crops simply can't grow. They provide money and livelihood to regions with no other no natural resources. The health of coastal communities is directly linked to the health of their coral reefs. The services provided by coral reefs including in food tourism and coastal protection are valued at around three hundred and seventy five billion US dollars a year. But the health of coral reefs doesn't just affect the communities living near them they have a much bigger connection to the overall health of the ocean everywhere. Coral reefs are fish factories. Coral reefs produce such a large amount of fish mass it actually over spills into the surrounding ecosystems providing a large link in the food chain that spans to the open ocean to large fishes like tuna and other sought after eating fishes by both rich and poor alike. Three point five billion people. Nearly half the entire world population looks to the ocean for food. Who you eat seafood? I'll tell you right now you're not alone. Me and just a few billion other people also have seafood as a part of our diet. Our dependence on the ocean is huge but as our economies grow our reliance on the sea only grows with it but we have become more disconnected with nature. We are no longer looking for our own food. We buy what we need off the shelf of a shop. The understanding of where the fish on our plates comes from becomes more and more distant to the point where the thought completely disappears. We live our daily lives without realizing the consequences of our actions our choices and the effect has on the ocean and our surrounding environment. And it's quite easy for many of us to say yes coral reefs in the ocean are pretty and important but ultimately their degration caused by overfishing pollution and habitat destruction is just another sad story on a facebook feed rather than a serious issue with real consequences that affects every single one of us no matter how far from the ocean we live. And it's hard to. As humans we generally always find it easier to make emotional connections with animals that resemble us mammals rather than seemingly alien beings like fish. For underwater photographers I feel as it up to us to bridge this gap between us and the ocean through the power of visual imagery. I want to personify the underwater world by giving its inhabitants a face giving them expression giving them a voice to say I am unique I am important and I am more than you think. I want to show creatures and environments that look straight out of science fiction. I want to use images to untangle the complexity of the reef. Does anyone see the seahorse in this photo? I want to captivate people's attention and focus it on a world that may have never seen before. And ultimately allow us to better understand our dependence on the ocean while still having a connection of familiarity. I believe that only when we bridge this gap between us and the ocean can we truly understand our dependence on it. Break the surface, don't come back. Descend further into the eerie black. Reveal the secret. Too well kept. Dive into these ocean depths. Thank you.