Photographer Kim Preston’s clever images of everyday objects as the sea creatures they endanger are part of a project to raise awareness about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Photos of jellyfish from the Florida Aquarium in Tampa by M.M. Meeks 

If the ocean had a yearbook it might look something like these images by underwater photographer Kim Yusuf.

Feather Stars (crinoids) and their look-alike camouflaged shrimp. Learn more about them in this post from the Echinoblog.

Robert Kunzman’s vibrant photos of jellyfish.

Photos by Chrisy Elle

Stunning underwater photography by Andrey Narchuck

Images from Ocean Soul, a National Geographic book of photography by Brian Skerry

About the book:

Ocean Soul is a love story. It is a story of discovery. It is a story of hope. The story begins when a boy who loves the sea attends an event with underwater photographers and has an epiphany: “I had always wanted to explore the oceans, but I now understood how I would do this. I would do it with a camera.” With sheer deter­mination, hard work, and a little bit of luck the boy, named Brian Skerry, realized his dream with more than 20 awe-inspiring articles for National Geographic magazine. Now, with Ocean Soul, he showcases his stunning photography and describes his adventurous life in a gripping portrait of the ocean as a place of beauty and mystery, a place in trouble, and ultimately, a place of hope that will rebound with the proper attention and care.

Images from the Census of Marine Life

About:

The first Census of Marine Life produced the most comprehensive inventory of known marine life ever compiled and cataloged it as a basis for future research—30 million records as of January 2011 and counting! This first baseline picture of ocean life—past, present, and future—can be used to forecast, measure, and understand changes in the global marine environment, as well as to inform the management and conservation of marine resources. The Census investigated life in the global ocean from microbes to whales, from top to bottom, from pole to pole, bringing together the world’s preeminent marine biologists, who shared ideas, data, and results. During their 10 years of discovery, Census scientists discovered new species, habitats, and connections and unlocked many of the ocean’s long-held secrets. They found and formally described more than1, 200 new marine species, with another 5,000 or more in the pipeline awaiting formal description. They discovered areas in the ocean where animals congregate, from white shark cafés in the open ocean to an evening rush hour in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge to a shoal of fish the size of Manhattan off the coast of New Jersey, USA. They unearthed a rare biosphere in the microbial world, where scarce species lie in wait to become dominant if change goes their way, and found species believed to reside at both poles. While unlocking many secrets, investigators also documented long-term and widespread declines in marine life as well as resilience of the ocean in areas where recovery was apparent.

Some of the crazy creatures from Claire Nouvian’s 2007 book The Deep

About the book:

On dry land, most organisms are confined to the surface, or at most to altitudes of a hundred meters—the height of the tallest trees. In the oceans, though, living space has both vertical and horizontal dimensions: with an average depth of 3800 meters, the oceans offer 99% of the space on Earth where life can develop. And the deep sea, which has been immersed in total darkness since the dawn of time, occupies 85% of ocean space, forming the planet’s largest habitat. Yet these depths abound with mystery. The deep sea is mostly uncharted—only about 5 percent of the seafloor has been mapped with any reasonable degree of detail—and we know very little about the creatures that call it home. Current estimates about the number of species yet to be found vary between ten and thirty million. The deep sea no longer has anything to prove; it is without doubt Earth’s largest reservoir of life.

Combining the latest scientific discoveries with astonishing color imagery, The Deep takes readers on a voyage into the darkest realms of the ocean. Revealing nature’s oddest and most mesmerizing creatures in crystalline detail, The Deep features more than two hundred color photographs of terrifying sea monsters, living fossils, and ethereal bioluminescent creatures, some photographed here for the very first time. Accompanying these breathtaking photographs are contributions from some of the world’s most respected researchers that examine the biology of deep-sea organisms, the ecology of deep-sea habitats, and the history of deep-sea exploration.

Sea Slug Symphony is a terrific gallery by The Ark in Space that will introduce you to a few of the surprisingly diverse species of nudibranchs (aka sea slugs). 

Daniel DeWitt Brown imagines a world where normally ocean dwelling creatures live in absurd land habitats for his series Ocean Invasion.

Ceramics by Noriko Kuresumi

Kuresumi on his work:

The sea is the origin of life. All lives are connected and have been supporting each other. I create my work by imagining the source of harmony and balance of the ocean.

Scientist and explorer Jacques Cousteau looks particularly jaunty in his red cap in this wonderful portrait by Lisel Ashlock. 

As a former surfer, Paul Bobko had plenty of time to observe waves of all shapes and forms. It was during this time that he found his inspiration for his series Water Landscapes-Suspended Energy. 

About the project:

In his magnum opus, Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon introduces us to the German concept of Brenschluss in the telemetry of the flight of the V2 rocket. The rocket is propelled by its engines and travels along its parabolic arc. At a certain point the engines turn off, this flameout is called brenschluss. At brenschluss the rocket’s ascendancy is checked by gravity, and before it begins to fall to its target on earth, it hesitates for just a moment. After this moment gravity and momentum alone, not a rocket engine, define the inexorable trajectory of descent to its inevitable, calamitous end.

So to do Paul Bobko’s Water Landscapes-Suspended Energy photographs allow us to see that very moment of hesitation when the force of nature that is the ocean wave, ceases to be propelled by the surging forces of the ocean floor. The ocean suddenly lets go and sets it free, it hesitates at this moment of release, then crashes on the shore, liberated, but spent. Bobko shows us this very moment of hesitation, before the explosion. The outline of the explosion is clear and coming, but it hasn’t happened yet, it is, as yet, prelude…the power is still coiled in the curl, frozen for this second. Light comes glowing through that watery tunnel, foam is leaping from its crest, escaping and ecstatic. The menace is limned in the terrifying flexing of its form. It is most exhilarating to see the noun become the verb.