My wife (Gina the Gorgeous) just sent me an email with what I thought was a cryptic subject line: “Photos of Fiji Islanders Taken on the Ocean Floor.”

You can only imagine my surprise to discover that this was a link to a column on the CNN website that did indeed feature photos of Fiji Islanders taken on the ocean floor.

As the title of the column says, These Haunting Underwater Photos Portray Climate Change in a New Way. The photographs are by Nick Brandt and the accompanying story is by Catherine E. Shoichet.

Nick’s photos are from SINK / RISE. This is the third chapter in The Day May Break, which is an ongoing global series portraying people and animals impacted by environmental degradation and destruction.

As it says on Nick’s website: “This third chapter focuses on South Pacific Islanders impacted by rising oceans from climate change. The local people in these photos, photographed underwater off the coast of the Fijian islands, are representatives of the many people whose homes, land, and livelihoods will be lost in the coming decades as the water rises.”

I can’t show these photos here because of copyright laws. Suffice it to say that everyone and everything in these images was shot in-camera underwater, and that the results truly are haunting. As always, I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on anything you see or read here on my Cool Beans Blog.