So much of the ocean is still a mystery, and none more so than the depths that can only be reached with special vessels.
David Shale began his career as a deep sea oceanographer with the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences. But it wasn't until he worked on the landmark BBC series ^Blue Planet^ 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 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! But to see the animals first hand at depth, collect them and photograph them is the ultimate experience”.
Shale’s astonishing pictures of these seldom-seen creatures have appeared in the traveling exhibition and book “Deeper than Light”, published by Bergen Museum Press in November 2007.
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