If you’re not the least bit envious of underwater cinematographer and producer Bryce Groark, then you don’t know his story. The Kona, Hawaii, local is on the short list of cameramen on call to Discovery Channel and National Geographic to document pelagic traffic spanning from oceanic whitetip sharks to humpback whales. He was part of the documentary team that produced Mission Blue, including none other than “Her Deepness,” Sylvia Earle, and is at work on a handful of diverse projects coming out soon.

Q: What was it like to share the ocean with Her Deepness?

Groark: The woman is amazing. We spent nine hours in the water with whale sharks at the mouth of the Mississippi River. The world doesn’t know how epic she is at 81 – she got out only one time to eat a PB&J. Her feet were bloody at the end of the day.

Q: And afterward?

Groark: The day began with water that was so milky, so full of spawn. It got cleaner and cleaner. Just before sunset, there were thousands of feet of visibility. The whale sharks had eaten the ocean clean. The scientists couldn’t believe it, and I was freaking out. We just documented something that had never been documented before — but more because we had done so with Sylvia Earle.

Q: Wow. And yet — what you’re most excited about right now isn’t exactly thrilling audiences.

Groark: I’ve been working on a film released June 2016 on YouTube called The Working Waterfront. It’s aimed at policymakers, backed by aquaculture groups. I know it’s on the boring side.

Q: So what makes it relevant?

Groark: Aquaculture farmers don’t have any bargaining power. They needed a tool to get the word out: Fish farming matters. As a diver, I feel a responsibility to make people understand that 50 to 70 percent of fish eaten in America is farmed in another country where there are no regulations. People want to eat fish, and they trust what they buy in stores. If you’re going to eat fish, ask where the exact fish came from. If the waiter has to ask the manager, don’t buy that fish. If it’s sustainable, the restaurant would brag about it. At the grocery store, the majority of what you’re buying was caught five weeks ago and gassed with carbon monoxide. The label says it was packaged yesterday, but it wasn’t processed or caught yesterday. Not by a long shot.

Q: Let’s end on a diving note. Where have you been swimming with your camera most recently?

Groark: Shark Week producers reached out, wanting footage of oceanics in my backyard. But that’s a hard shark to find nowadays. I warned them it might be a total skunk. Sure enough, the first seven days we didn’t see any off the Kona coast. Then, as with any film, miraculously on the last day, a couple of oceanics came in, including one female that made a beautiful pass. This shark [species] never lingers. It either doesn’t show at all or comes in really close. I always feel an awesome, intense presence around them because they give off this vibe — you can tell they live in an open blue wasteland. They don’t see much, so when they do, they’re right up on it to check it out. They reek of badass.

Before the Flood
Bryce Groark joins a pretty impressive list of names in the credits of Before the Flood, including Leonardo DiCaprio and President Barack Obama. The Fisher Stevens documentary, which includes underwater shots from Groark, takes an in-depth look at climate change as DiCaprio witnesses signs of it around the world. Catch the film in select theaters starting Oct. 21 or on National Geographic Channel.

Want to know how to get started in underwater videography? Here are out tips.