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So many creatures exist in the world that we know nothing about – and in this case, most of us have never even heard of a sea angel.
I know I haven’t anyway, but after seeing the below images, I’m mesmerized.
They were taken by marine biologist (and photographer) Alexander Semenov, and below, he provides a little background on the strange creatures, along with their travel and mating habits.
Crazy, right?
Semenov specializes in invertebrates, and heads up the divers’ team at Moscow State University’s White Sea Biological Station. During his time there he’s also become an expert in scientific macrophotography.
Posted by Alexander Semenov on Tuesday, January 7, 2020
“This practice makes it possible to observe animals that cannot be properly studied under laboratory conditions, such as soft-bodied planktonic organisms or stationary life forms living on the seafloor. My personal goal is to study underwater life through camera lenses and to boost people’s interest in marine biology. I do this by sharing all my findings through social media and in real life, through public lectures, movies, exhibitions, and various media events.”
Check out this video clip, which reveals a tiny sea slug in amazingly high quality.
The diver and his team have created a popular project called Aquatilis, and credit Jacques Cousteau, Jules Verne, and Thor Heyerdahl for the inspiration.
“The aim of the project is finding, studying, and photographing the most interesting and unusual denizens of the ocean.”
In an interview with EIZO, Semenov talked about the difficulty in photographing subjects the way that he and his team are working on doing.
Posted by Alexander Semenov on Tuesday, January 7, 2020
“Even the most modern cameras go crazy – white balance and colors are always shifted, some colors in the spectrum just disappear because of light absorption by the seawater. That’s why it’s almost impossible to get a good image without proper editing. The main goal is to get not only proper colors, but to make your picture shine and look natural, without over-editing – that’s what every wildlife photographer wants. As a final result, all these images will be in the books, exhibitions, galleries and magazines, so you need to be sure that your pictures look great not only on the screen, but as physical prints, too.”
I think we can all agree that these images of the mysteriously beautiful sea angels do exactly that.
