A global shift from fright to endearment is happening, and the world is falling in love with sharks as risk of their endangerment increases.

Mike Coots, who was nearly killed by a tiger shark as a teenager and has since dedicated his life to capturing and sharing sharks’ beauty and indispensable role in a healthy ocean, gets up close and very personal with the magnificent creatures, presenting his unique perspective through portraits exposing both their brawn and their brains. Traveling the world (Hawaii, Mexico, New Zealand, Bahamas, and Maldives), free diving and scuba diving, often with no cage, Coots has recorded Tigers, Great Hammerheads, rare Oceanic White Tips, Lemons, Silvertips, Caribbean Reef Sharks, and massive Great Whites, as big as fourteen feet in length.

Big, bold, and beautiful, extraordinary portraits of some of the ocean’s largest sharks present a fresh photographic narrative of what it’s like being apex. Coots anthropomorphizes the giant fish, with amazingly detailed and unexpectedly intimate images, filled with the stunning character of each species revealed marvelously.