Above and Below California’s Ocean, through the photography of Marc Shargel is a presentation officially launching the nature photography exhibit at Felton Library.
Marc Shargel is ready to roll off of his boat for a dive in Mendocino county. • Photo Credit: Steve Greenwood
The exhibit features images of local marine life and drastic changes in ecology, plus iconic western landscapes and eclipse photography.
Shargel is an award-winning nature photographer, marine conservationist and author of the three-volume Wonders of the Sea coffee-table series of books.
The event takes place Saturday, Jan. 13 from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m., Shargel will be present to talk about his art.
The exhibit will be displayed at the Felton Library from Jan. 2 to March 29 in the community room.
The library is open to the public 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday thru Thursday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
The all-ages, family-friendly event is free for and part of Community-led Learning, a project of Felton Library Friends and Santa Cruz Public Libraries.
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A Harbor Seal swims near a wharf in Monterey; the reflection of a red and yellow building gives the water surreal coloring in this unretouched photo. • © 1994 Marc Shargel / LivingSeaimages.com
Marc Shargel has taken his cameras underwater to photograph sharks, jellies, and kelp forests. On land he has made vivid images of eclipses and the great landscapes of the American West. As a scuba diver, he has been watching ecological shifts in the Central California Pacific since the 1970s.
Shargel has made photographic art from encounters with marine life ranging from tiny snails, to schools of jellies, to huge sharks. This is an Egg-Yolk Jelly that he found in Carmel Bay in 1999. • © 1999 Marc Shargel / LivingSeaimages.com
Recently, he has used his camera to document stunning changes to California’s kelp forests. On Saturday, January 13, he’ll share a lifetime of photographic images and marine observations with guests at the Felton Library. Shargel will highlight the most extreme, recent changes seen from Big Sur to Mendocino, and explain what science has revealed about recent declines in our kelp forests.
Shargel observed slow but continuous decreases in marine life during scuba dives from 1978 to 2013. Then, suddenly California’s kelp began to disappear, and with it over 1,000 species that live in kelp forests.
Since 1997 he has been a champion for marine reserves, which are no-take areas that function as refuges and nurseries for life in our ocean. He played an integral part in drawing the boundaries for new marine reserves along the Central Coast. Renowned marine biologist Sylvia Earle calls them “hope spots.”
But in 2013, just six years after the new reserves went into effect, stunning changes in marine life presented a new threat. Shargel will reveal a photographic chronicle of the beautiful but now-threatened kelp forests found just beyond local shores.
Sunlight tinted aquamarine filters into the golden brown of a cathedral-like forest of giant kelp. • © 2001 Marc Shargel / LivingSeaimages.com
Shargel’s photos of California marine life were a unique contribution to the debate about creating marine reserves in Central California. After 2007, as processes to create “parks in the ocean” moved to other parts of the state, he created larger photo essays for each region. These became a series of three lavishly printed coffee-table volumes, his Wonders of the Sea books.
Following that, he authored the soft cover Yesterday’s Ocean: A History of Marine Life on California’s Central Coast.
Shargel is well-known to local art lovers as well: his home-studio is a regular stop on the Santa Cruz County Open Studios tour each October, as well as the San Lorenzo Valley Art Tour each May.
His photography includes placid vistas beneath sunlit kelp forests, and encounters with everything from jewel-like snails to swarming jellies and schooling hammerhead sharks.
He has presented at nearly every dive club in the greater Bay Area, and dozens of civic organizations as well.
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Felton Library, a branch of Santa Cruz Public Libraries; 6121 Gushee Street; Felton, CA 95018
Marc Shargel has been photographing underwater wonders for decades. This view of fast-growing kelp in a sunlit sea is one of his newer images, taken in September of 2021 in Southern California. • © 2021 Marc Shargel / LivingSeaimages.com
Additional details can be found at www.LivingSeaimages.com/events.php
TOP PHOTO: Giant Powder Puff Anemones look as if they’ve been arranged in a bouquet. This natural scene was nearly 100′ deep, off Pacific Grove, on a day when the water was beautifully clear. • © 2022 Marc Shargel / LivingSeaimages.com