But the encounter did not unfold as planned.
A large tiger shark approached the equipment.
Strom attempted to prevent the animal from biting the camera and offered food to redirect its attention.
The shark nevertheless took the device into its mouth.
The camera continued recording.
Its lenses captured images from inside the animal's oral cavity, including the surrounding jaws and a view of three divers on the seafloor.
After a period, the shark released the equipment.
Strom recovered it and discovered that the housing had suffered only minor scratches from the animal's teeth.
No diver was injured.
The recording subsequently attracted widespread attention because of its unusual perspective.
Those facts are remarkable without adding any imaginary danger.
The camera was not carried into the shark's stomach.
The animal did not swallow a diver.
There was no documented human attack.
And the equipment was not destroyed.
Instead, the shark briefly held the camera in its mouth before releasing it.
The resulting footage provided a rare view of a living tiger shark from an angle that underwater photographers would ordinarily have difficulty obtaining.
The incident is also an example of how wildlife photography can produce unexpected results.
Photographers often spend considerable time planning where to position equipment.
They consider the movement of animals, the direction of light, water clarity, and the capabilities of their cameras.
But wild animals do not follow a filming schedule.
Their movements can change without warning.
An animal may approach an object from an unexpected direction.
It may investigate equipment that was intended to remain stationary.
Or it may interact with a camera in a way the photographer never anticipated.
Strom's experience followed that pattern.
The equipment was placed to observe sharks.
Then a shark became directly involved in moving the equipment.
For a brief period, the animal determined what the camera recorded.
The unusual result depended on several circumstances occurring together.
The camera needed to be close enough for the shark to reach.
The animal needed to take it into its mouth.
The device needed to continue operating.
Its lenses needed to capture recognizable images despite the confined position.
And the shark needed to release it somewhere the photographer could recover it.
Had any of those circumstances been different, the footage might never have survived.
The animal could have damaged the camera.
It could have carried the equipment away.
Or the lenses might have captured images too obscured to reveal the unusual perspective.
Instead, the device remained functional.
The camera's 360-degree recording capability became central to the result.
A conventional camera might have captured only a narrow portion of the shark's mouth.
The wide-angle system allowed the footage to preserve information from multiple directions.
That made it possible to see the relationship between the animal's jaws and the divers outside.
The presence of the three divers was particularly striking.