After hearing the thug of the massive three-volume set of books that arrived on my desk, it wasn’t hard to see how it took Australian photographer and author Roger Steene 50 years to create Colours of the Reef, his 13th book. The compilation includes over 7,000 full-color images that feature marine life identification, behavior, reproduction and adaptations. Having designed and published the book independently, only 900 copies are available worldwide – and luckily, we were able to snag one.

Aside from its size, another interesting fact to note is that the books are self-published.

“Having dealt with publishers in the past,” Steene explained. “I realized for this particular project the only way I could get it done the way I wanted to do it was for me to have total control of it – which means the designing of it, and actually the publishing of it.”

It took Steene and his colleague, Mike McCoy, two-and-a-half years to put the book together and format it for print.

Within the set, readers will find page after page of colorful marine photographs, some with their Latin identification, others with brief descriptions of behavior and adaptations. Steene recalls one of his favorite pieces being about the mimic octopus, which he himself had only discovered a few years ago. Most of the information throughout the book combines Steene’s own observations with those of marine scientists he has dived with in the past.

“I tried to make it as broad a scope as I possibly could,” said Steene. “I’m just trying to cover things that have been covered and haven’t been covered.” His overall purpose, he said, was not only to make the book comprehensive, but as colorful as possible – hence its title – and its size.

To order the book, and for more information, visit fishid.com/colours.html.