Daylight Illuminates Undulating Kelp Forests in Underwater Images by Douglas Klug — Colossal



Photography

#climate crisis
#Douglas Klug
#nature
#oceans
#seaweed
#water

All photographs © Doug Klug, shared with permission

If you happen to’ve walked alongside an ocean shoreline, chances are high you’ve stumbled upon the crumpled, brownish-green tendrils of kelp washed up at excessive tide. Regardless of appearances, the otherworldly seaweed just isn’t a plant however slightly a sort of algae. Leaf-like types known as blades take in daylight to photosynthesize, and gas-filled bladders maintain the buildings near the floor. Underwater, they develop in elegantly swaying forests, offering nourishment and shelter to marine wildlife. For Douglas Klug, these swish, undulating ecosystems present infinite inspiration and shocking interactions.

Primarily based in Santa Barbara, California, Klug is an avid scuba diver and photographer who focuses on marine life, highlighting colleges of fish and myriad textures as they work together within the rippling daylight. Many of the kelp forests he explores are inside Channel Islands Nationwide Park close to the place he lives. “All my diving is inside what is taken into account ‘leisure’ limits at depths shallower than 130 ft. The water is chilly, and the ocean has robust vitality known as surge, so the situations might be difficult to work in,” he tells Colossal.

Klug pays consideration to adjustments within the ecosystem, noting that “kelp forests themselves reside, thriving environments that may wax and wane with currents, water temperature, or different components,” offering clues to the ocean’s well being and the trickle-down impact for animals and people that depend on its meals sources. Not solely is among the seaweed edible, it offers secure haven and nurseries for fish, whereas giant concentrations of the algae are highly effective carbon sinks in a position to sequester thousands and thousands of kilos of carbon dioxide. As a result of results of the local weather disaster and human inference with fragile aquatic ecosystems, the forests are struggling.

Klug shines a lightweight on the marine world with the hope that viewers will acquire understanding and appreciation for important habitats. “I like capturing the kelp forests as a result of it lets me spotlight one in every of nature’s most essential sources,” he says. “Kelp forests are essential to all of us as they contribute to our world’s well being and stability.” Together with different wildlife like seals, sea lions, and nudibranchs—a bunch of significantly colourful, tiny molluscs—the ocean challenges the artist to seek out the precise situations for lighting and thrilling encounters, and to be in the precise place on the proper time.

Discover extra of Klug’s nature pictures on his website and Flickr.

#climate crisis
#Douglas Klug
#nature
#oceans
#seaweed
#water

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