Capturing the light in a dark underwater world

I stopped by the Coconut Grove Arts Festival Gallery to say hello to my friend Jose Regalado, who was helping them set up his work for the premier of "Rapture of the Deep," an exhibit of Jose's work opening Saturday night, May 2 at the gallery. 

Jose has one of the best jobs ever; if you can call it a job - he's a camera man, mostly an underwater cameraman for television, you've seen his work on the Discovery Channel and Travel Channel and TBS, VH1, just about everywhere. He's been to over 50 countries and while on his assignments, he takes the most amazing photos of underwater life. 

What's intersting about this, as Jose explained it to me, is that the deeper you get the less color is shown on the fish and plant life, they actually lose color, for instance you go down a certain amount of feet and you can't see red, go down further and you can't see blue and so on.

Jose gets the colors in his photos simply by using a high powered flash. In the deep, dark ocean, he snaps the photos and the portion that is in the light is bright red and oranges and blues. The portion that is in the shadows is a dark blue or purple. It's quite beautiful. Jose prints the photos on staineless steel, which offers a reflective look to them.

Jose not only works for tv, but his photos have been featured in Scuba Diving Magazine, Sport Diver, Scuba, National Geographic and the Miami Herald. I think when you have your work in National Geographic, that says it all.

Come out and meet Jose on Saturday, he'll be at the gallery from 7 to 10 pm. There's food drink and lots of friends. 

The Coconut Grove Arts Gallery is at the Mayfair Atrium, next to the bull sculpture off of Mary and Grand.