Great Shark Forever: Calif. Photographer's Image Inspires USPS Stamp

Shark Week 2017 has come and gone, but an image of a great white shark taken by a California underwater photographer is coming to a mailbox near you. According to the U.S. Postal Service, a photo by Norbert Wu was the basis of an illustration used to create the Great Shark Forever stamp unveiled and released July 26 as part of the new Sharks Forever stamps collection.

The USPS says it receives about 40,000 suggestions for stamp ideas each year but only about 25 make the cut, so to have one’s work appear on a stamp is remarkably rare.

Wu, of Pacific Grove in California’s Monterey County, believes capturing the image that will now appear on millions of pieces of mail was also a rare occurrence.

Since 1986, Wu, a Stanford University graduate who briefly worked as a computer engineer in Silicon Valley before following his lifelong passion of marine biology, has taken several hundred photography expeditions. The award-winning filmmaker, author and photographer has captured images of dolphins, whales, sharks and other marine and wildlife in practically every corner of the world -- from the Arctic to Antarctica, from the Galapagos to South Africa and countless locations in between. Typically, one may have to travel to South Australia to photograph a great white -- and even then, sightings can be limited.

This image, though, was taken a little closer to home.

It was on a day in August 2006, in the waters off Guadalupe Island, Baja, Mexico, where divers and photographers can go underwater in a “shark cage.” It was the last day of his trip, and because it was late in the afternoon, the sun's rays were filtering down through the water, Wu explained.

“We had not had great luck in having sharks come by close enough for good photographs,” Wu said. “As the trip leader, I had ‘held back,’ being less aggressive in getting to the front of the shark cage. I remember lying on my stomach in the cage, positioning my camera between the legs of about three to four other divers/photographers (easy when we were all weightless), all of us crowding to the front and thrusting our cameras out of the cage as a shark came by.

“As a long-time underwater photographer, I had a sense that I had gotten ‘the shot.’ I had a gut feeling that the sun rays, the shark's angle, and its proximity had all come together to create a memorable image. Sure enough, this image always jumps out from my other great white shark images as a special one.” [See Wu’s photo.]

In addition to the stamp based off Wu’s photo, the Sharks Forever stamps collection is composed of illustrations by artist Sam Weber of images captured by four other undersea photographers of a mako shark, a thresher shark, a whale shark and a hammerhead shark.

The hope is that the collection will inspire a new respect for these creatures of the sea, said U.S. Postal Service Chief Human Resources Officer and Executive Vice President Jeffrey Williamson.

“The Postal Service, one our nation’s oldest public institutions, takes pride in our use of stamps to raise awareness for issues and we hope that [this] unveiling will heighten the need for shark conservation,” Williamson said. “Now, while sharks may be scary to some, the prospects of a world without sharks is truly frightening. As apex predators in our oceans, sharks keep our marine life in balance. And by doing so they play a critical role in regulating our largest ecosystem.

“We hope that you will not only purchase these stamps to mail lots of letters and cards, but that you will also take the opportunity to learn more about sharks and why they deserve our deep respect and protection.”

Photo of Great Shark Forever stamp ©2017 USPS