Saratoga News

Photograph by Robert Scheer

Lynn and Bruce Bowen share their 'Hidden World of the Sea' with an exhibit at Aegis Gallery of Fine Art.

Exhibit reveals hidden undersea world

By Shari Kaplan

It's said the ocean is one of the last frontiers on this planet that still invites exploration.

That would make Bruce and Lynn Bowen underwater pioneers, since they've been photographing under the sea for the past 20 years. Just as pages ripped from a diary offer a hint about the writer's life, the Bowens' exhibit at Saratoga's Aegis Gallery of Fine Art, called The Hidden World of the Sea, offers a sample of the mysterious water world that many people never experience.

"Four-fifths of our planet lie beneath this watery veil, and within this beautiful world are some of nature's most exquisite masterpieces of life," the husband-and-wife team writes in an artists' statement.

"Life forms that one would expect to see only in the most bizarre science fiction worlds exist here...in glorious colors, shapes and diversity. No single photograph can capture the hidden world of the sea. It is an experience that requires all the senses to comprehend."

Certified divers, the Sunnyvale residents have used professional underwater cameras and strobe lights to snap thousands of photographs during the hundreds of dives they've made over the years. Some exotic locales they've visited include the southern and northern Pacific Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, the Red Sea and the waters around the Galapagos Islands. They also dive monthly in the Monterey Bay, which Bruce says on a good day "is as nice as any other place we've photographed in the world."

"I've always enjoyed snorkeling and swimming--it was always a passion of mine, but I was never in a position to do more," he recalls of his life before meeting Lynn. She was studying diving while also studying for an engineering degree, and Bruce was in medical school. In time, both were divers and even dove during their Florida honeymoon.

They tried land photography a few years later, but, as Bruce says, it didn't excite them nearly as much as the idea of capturing underwater images. They invested in some underwater photography equipment and began a hobby--and secondary career of sorts--that has since led to awards in national and international photography contests as well as publication in three magazines.

At Aegis, their photographs showcase easily recognized undersea residents such as fish and coral as well as more unusual denizens. "Yellow Spirals" shows the feathery tongue and gills of a serpulid tube worm from the Solomon Islands. The structures, which look more plantlike than animal, filter food and oxygen and provide the worm with sensations of light and touch.

In "Squirrel Fish and Sea Fan," taken in Papua, New Guinea, the pink squirrel fish darting around the fronds of a golden-bronze sea fan resemble squirrels scampering among the lower branches of a tree. In "Galapagos Sea Lion," the streamlined mammal shoots gracefully by the camera.

"If the shark is the king predator of the ocean, then the sea lion is definitely the court jester," Bruce writes in the caption under the photo, explaining how sea lions swim playfully around the camera, pose in "ridiculous positions" and then dart away just as the camera is ready to snap. Nearby is "Close Encounter," a photograph of a silvertip shark illumined by sunbeams from the water's surface. The menacing fish was only two feet away when Lynn took the photograph.

"The Hidden World of the Sea" runs through Oct. 26. Aegis Gallery is located at 14531 Big Basin Way. For more information, call 867-0171.

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