Keith Ellenbogen is an underwater photographer whose work centers on marine conservation, while Allan Adams is a theoretical physicist whose work revolves around fluid dynamics inside black holes. When they met at a party in 2013, they realized they could combine their talents to produce gorgeous video of some of nature's most interesting marine life.
In 2013, Ellenbogen was working on a marketing project for the New England Aquarium. Cuttlefish are fast little buggers — so fast, in fact, that it's difficult to capture the motion they make when they catch prey. Luck and happenstance would introduce him to Adams, who had access to MIT's advanced high-speed cameras. Together, the pair realized they could produce some remarkable results, slowing the lightning-quick motion of the cuttlefish down to speeds that detailed every intricate move. The aquarium was so taken aback by the footage that they decided to run their first television ad campaign in four decades.
The ad campaign wasn't the end of the collaboration, though. This year, Ellenbogen will be joining MIT on a visiting artist fellowship, where he and Adams will be teaching a class on underwater photography together. The pair will also continue to refine their techniques, choosing to focus on the difficult lighting inherently necessary for high-speed underwater photography. We look forward to seeing what further results this marriage of science and art produces.
Image by Lilla Frerichs, used under public domain.
[via Boston Globe]
