Laurent Ballesta (France) endures below-freezing dives to reveal the diversity of life beneath Antarctica’s ice.
Deep below the ice, a helmet jellyfish pulses by Laurent. Exposure to direct sunlight is lethal for it, so it stays in the darkness. Far above, bathed in seeping light is Laurent's team, their tiny silhouettes just visible here.
One of just a few bioluminescent true jellyfish, known as scyphozoans, the helmet jellyfish can emit blue or blue-green light to warn off predators.
France
Laurent has authored 13 photography books on underwater wildlife. As co-founder of Andromède Océanologie, he has been leading major expeditions for 10 years. He illustrates the underwater world as both a naturalist and an artist - whether that be capturing the first pictures of a coelacanth taken by a diver at a depth of 120 metres, documenting 700 sharks off Fakarava hunting at night or photographing the deepest and longest dive in Antarctica.
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