Cameraman and photographer David Shale began his career as a deep sea oceanographer with the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences, before going on to work on many landmark BBC series. But it wasn't until he worked on Blue Planet, for which he accepted a BAFTA award, that he began to think about photographing deep sea animals. Accompanying scientific expeditions to some of the remotest parts of the ocean, Shale uses special tanks and the latest technologies to photograph a host of eccentric life forms as they are brought to the surface. In this way, he has sometimes helped to document species completely new to science. Photographing deep sea animals is extremely challenging, notes Shale. Maintaining the correct conditions for his subjects means working for up to eight hours in a very cold room on a rolling ship in the dark! David's images have been widely published in exhibitions, scientific journals, magazines and books, including the Firefly Books title Creatures of the Deep by Erich Hoyt.

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