Marc Shargel has taken his cameras underwater to capture images of sharks, jellies and kelp forests. On land, he has made vivid images of eclipses and landscapes of the American West.
As a scuba diver, he has been watching ecological shifts in the Central California Pacific since the 1970s. Recently, he has used his camera to document stunning changes to local kelp forests.
On Saturday, July 8, from 2 to 4pm, he’ll share a lifetime of photographic images and marine observations with visitors to the Scotts Valley Library. Shargel will highlight the most extreme, recent changes seen from Santa Cruz to Big Sur, and explain what science has revealed about recent declines in our kelp forests.
Shargel has observed slow but continuous decreases in marine life over 45 years of diving. Since 1997, he has been a champion for marine reserves, which are no-take areas that function as refuges and nurseries for the life in our ocean.
He played an integral part in drawing the boundaries for new marine reserves along the Central Coast. Renowned marine biologist Sylvia Earle calls them “hope spots.” But in 2013, just six years after the new reserves went into effect, stunning changes in marine life presented a new threat. Shargel will reveal a photographic chronicle of the beautiful but now-threatened kelp forests found just beneath local waters.
Shargel’s photos of California marine life were a unique contribution to the Central California debate about creating marine reserves. After 2007, as processes to create “parks in the ocean” moved to other parts of the state, he created larger photo essays for each region.
These became a series of three lavishly printed coffee-table volumes, his “Wonders of the Sea” books. Following that, he authored the soft cover “Yesterday’s Ocean: A History of Marine Life on California’s Central Coast.”
Shargel is well-known to local art lovers as well: his home-studio is a regular stop on the Santa Cruz County Open Studios tour each October, as well as the newer San Lorenzo Valley Art Tour each May.
His photography includes placid vistas beneath sunlit kelp forests, and encounters with everything from jewel-like snails to swarming jellies and schooling hammerhead sharks. He has presented at nearly every dive club in the greater Bay Area, and dozens of civic organizations as well.
The July 8 event marks a showing of Shargel’s photography at the Scotts Valley Library, which is open to the public every day except Sundays at 251 Kings Village Road. The all-ages, family-friendly event is free, and light refreshments will be provided by Friends of the Scotts Valley Library.
His photographic exhibit, “Above, Below, and Around the World Through the Lens of Marc Shargel,” is also free and will be on view from July 1 to Sept. 26 during the Scotts Valley Library branch hours.
Photos courtesy of Marc Shargel
