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Inner Space
The show will feature images made during the artists' black water dives, in which they photograph minute, translucent creatures that rise at night from the ocean’s depths to its surface to feed.
The Photographer’s Eye Gallery will host a reception for the artists from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Oct. 26, and artists Eilenberg and Tartar will conduct walk-throughs of their exhibit on Nov. 9 and Nov. 30 at 3 p.m. The nonprofit Photographer’s Eye Gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and by appointment by calling 760-522-2170. Free parking is available in front of and behind the gallery.
Eilenberg and Tartar are San Diego-based radiologists and a married couple who collaborate as Aperture Photo Arts. The couple began diving in 1989 and undertook underwater photography about six years later. Their photography ranges from shooting the planet’s largest creatures, sperm whales, to some of the smallest, like the wunderpus, a color-shifting octopus that emerges at dusk to hunt.
“In black water, these are small, translucent larval forms of life that come up from the deep at night,” Tartar said. Shooting at night in the deep presents a set of unique challenges, the first of which is diving proficiency.
“The better diver you are the better photographer you’ll be,” Tartar said. “You’re on a life- support system, (and) you have to have excellent buoyancy.”
To shoot in such a dark environment the couple position themselves along a line dropped into the sea from a buoy; the line has flashlights attached. They use their own lighting array to photograph creatures that catch their attention.
Such a creature is a tube anemone larva, which lives in waters off the Philippines and rises from as 1,000 meters deep. Nutrients in the water stick to the larva’s “fingers,” which the organism licks. “As it slowly tumbles in the water column, I wait for a good body position and shoot,” Eilenberg said. Intense strobe lighting defines and accentuates the tiny creature's features.
The reward for their work is in sharing images of creatures that few of us would get to see.
“In the end it’s about showing people a hidden world,” Tartar said. “A world that we value greatly and everyone should value, that our planet pretty much depends on. ... It’s kind of a miracle what’s in there and we only know a fraction of it.”
“I’d love for some people to just have their mouth drop open and say, ‘I can’t believe this even exists on this planet. This is not a real creature, is it?’” Eilenberg said.
Event Links
Exhibitor: https://go.evvnt.com/2701442-0
