Ambassadors of the Deep
The Dolphin Project hopes to strengthen the bond between humans and one of the ocean’s most communicative creatures by Mark McDermott Dolphins have a way of changing the arc of a human life. Eric Martin remembers the exact moment his life with dolphins began. It was 9 o’clock in the morning on October 28, 1984. Through his job as a guide at Marineland, he’d become acquainted with marine photographer Bob Talbot, who worked with the Gray Whale Census and Behavior Project in Palos Verdes. That morning, he’d just arrived at work when he ran into Talbot, who was in a hurry. A pod of orcas had been spotted off the coast. Talbot would later become famous, both as a photographer and as a director of such films as Free Willy, Flipper, Into the Blue, and Dolphin Story 2. But at the time, he was just another member of a certain tribe of avid people who spent as much time as possible in the company of marine mammals. Martin, just out of high school, was both an animal lover and photo enthusiast. He’d started photographing birds around his hometown of El Segundo at the age of 10, and as a teenager volunteered as a photographer helping count bald eagles in Big Bear. Then, through his work at…
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