Expecting

He is pregnant, and he is not pleased about the attention.

Among seahorses it is the male who carries the young. The female deposits her eggs into a pouch on his belly and he broods them there until they are ready, then gives birth to a cloud of miniatures into the current. This one, eight millimetres long, is swollen with them, holding a branch of pink gorgonian with the tail and looking straight down the lens.

Pygmy seahorses turn away from light. Getting one to face the camera means waiting for the moment it forgets you are there, with the lens a hand's width from an animal you could lose by exhaling. Two strobes, the smallest aperture the lens has, so that every tubercle on the skin is sharp. The coral is the same pink as the animal. That is not a coincidence; it is the whole reason he is still alive.