Photo by FOTOmentor Award winner Brian Skerry
The Palm Beach Photographic Centre is hosting “Luminous Seas,” an exhibition of sea animal photos taken by FOTOmentor Award winner Brian Skerry through May 28.
The center’s awards committee granted the prize to Skerry for his lifetime achievement in photography over a four-decade career as a photojournalist focused on the seas, including underwater life.
The president and CEO of the Palm Beach Photographic Centre, Fatima NeJame, announced the award and the exhibit, which opened March 1.
The display includes eight shark species, five whale species, bluefin tuna, manatees, seals and more.
Skerry has traveled in equipment ranging from snowmobiles to a Goodyear blimp for his work, and he has lived at the bottom of the sea for months. “We are all connected to the sea and tied to her fate,” Skerry said he has learned during a lifetime of ocean research. Skerry has spent over 10,000 hours underwater with a camera. He has worked for National Geographic since 1998 and was named the Rolex National Geographic Explorer of the Year for 2017.
“Earth’s oceans are vital to our very existence, and photographs can communicate this in the most powerful of ways,” Skerry said. “From a single image we can be motivated, educated, entertained and inspired.” His images feature intimate and fleeting moments with rarely seen behaviors in the lives of marine animals, rewarding his thousands of hours in ocean habitats.
He has a solo exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington called “Portraits of Planet Ocean.” He has written 12 books, including “Ocean Soul,” “SHARK,” and his most recent work, “Secrets of the Whales,” which National Geographic published last year, won the Primetime Emmy Award for outstanding documentary.
The artist hopes you will leave his Palm Beach exhibition with a renewed love and respect for the water and the marine ecosystem, as well as an awareness of its fragility. His photographs capture the vital force these animals emit in their natural habitat, exhibiting their grace, beauty and vulnerability.
The Photo Centre is located in downtown West Palm Beach at 415 Clematis St. You can visit their website at workshop.org.
