Photographer of the Week – Michelle Manson

A soupfin shark swimming amongst the attractive solar rays and kelp forests off San Diego, California, USA

 

It’s no secret that the Monterey Bay space is a world-class dive spot. As such it needs to be no shock that there are numerous nice photographers for whom Monterey is their playground. This week we’re that includes one other certainly one of them: Monterey Bay native Michelle Manson. Michelle resides in Santa Cruz, simply down the street from “The Bay,” and she or he dives it each likelihood she will get. She says she loves cold-water diving and is extremely glad to reside on the west coast with quick access to Central California’s kelp forests and all of the life they help.

Michelle has at all times been drawn to any exercise that concerned water, so when she obtained an honest tax return in school, she made her dream come true and received scuba licensed in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. She was hooked! She started spending her days off serving to out on the native dive store in Phoenix. This ultimately led to a PADI Teacher certification. She was educating so many lessons, she determined to maneuver to Catalina Island, and from there, as much as Monterey Bay.

Michelle picked up a Nikonos V as her first underwater digicam. She now makes use of a Nikon D850, which she loves, however she says she does typically miss the colours and total aesthetic of movie photographs. Whereas Michelle has made footage everywhere in the world, her house waters stay her favourite. Roaming up and down the kelp forests, trying to find cold-water critters, and perhaps getting a flyby from a sea lion or Mola mola, for Michelle there’s nothing higher.

 

California’s most recognizable nudibranch, the Spanish scarf, Monterey Bay, California, USA

 

An enormous jelly smack: {The summertime} sea nettles of Monterey Bay, California, USA

 

A diminutive fringehead peeks out of a barnacle shell, Monterey Bay, California, USA

 

The world’s cutest fish and an icon of the Pacific Northwest, the spiny lumpsucker, Washington, USA

 

A curious sea lion pup takes a peek on the digicam, Sea of Cortez, Baja, Mexico

 

Striped marlin cruising by way of the deep blue off Baja, on the hunt for sardines, Mexico

 

A trio of ornate ghost pipefish, organized pleasingly from largest to smallest, shelter close to a crinoid, Dauin, Philippines

 

A wonderful clown dorid explores a rock in Monterey Bay, California, USA

 

A rainbow nudibranch laying eggs on a tube anemone tube after devouring the anemone, Monterey Bay, California, USA

 

A tube anemone—not but eaten by the above nudi—lit selectively through snoot, Monterey Bay, California, USA

 

The brittle star military swarming over the ocean ground, Channel Islands Nationwide Park, California, USA

 

A implausible little fringehead with much more implausible hair, Monterey Bay, California, USA

 

To view extra of Michelle’s superior underwater work from Monterey and all over the world, please comply with her on Instagram and take a look at her website.