What do you think?
Rate this book
Two Worlds: Above and Below the Sea
The first major book in two decades by the pioneering underwater photographer, beloved as the 'Audubon of the sea' The ocean covers more than seventy percent of our planet, and yet we rarely glimpse its depths - and especially its exquisite beauty as documented by legendary photographer David Doubilet. His work in and on water has set the standard for decades. In this remarkable and highly-anticipated collection by artist and diver David Doubilet, whose innovation, eye for beauty, and passion for conservation have long set the bar for underwater photography, Doubilet unites life above and below the water's surface. Spotlighting a stunning selection of images from Doubilet's 50-year career, spanning the Galapagos to the Red Sea, the icy waters of the Antarctic Ocean to the tropical Great Barrier Reef, this body of work raises important questions about conservation and global warming, topics never far from the headlines. 'I want to create a window into the sea', he says, that invites people to see how their world connects to another life-sustaining world hidden from their view. Doubilet's photographs are accompanied by an introduction by Kathy Moran and an afterword by Kathryn D. Sullivan.
128 pages, Hardcover
Published November 3, 2021
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 2, 2024
15 Sept 2021
B.A. Van Sise for the New York Journal of Books
There are certain rules to putting together a book of photography, and with that in mind it’s necessary to note that Two Worlds: Above and Below the Sea by David Doubilet completely fails.
The first and most important rule is this: as with any artistic portfolio, you must put your best photographs at the beginning, and your best photographs at the end, and in the middle shovel in all of the filler you’d rather everyone not notice. Doubilet fails, here, because he seems to have completely forgotten to include the filler, and instead packed his entire book with an absolutely overwhelming series of perfect photographs.
Now, it’s important that we get to the root of Doubilet’s failings, to better understand where he went wrong here: Did nobody tell him he had an obligation to the larger photographic community to not demoralize them and make every photographer in America feel technically and intellectually inferior? Did nobody tell him that it is impolite to make something like this, but to make it look effortless to boot?
Yes, the longtime National Geographic photographer, who has been taking underwater photographs since the age of 12, has a great deal to answer for.
Doubilet is certainly not the first photographer to bring their lens below the surf; many preceded him, and many will follow. But here a more clever conceit is finally and consistently offered: what happens at the water’s edge, in the one razor-thin place and one lightning-quick moment when the water laps up, where the camera and photographer holding it are witnesses to two worlds. In Fiddler on the Roof, Reb Tevye wisely asks, “a bird may love a fish, but where would they build a home together?” and Doubilet finally offers him an answer: in this place, at this moment, in my hands, in my lens. But blink, and you shall miss it.
It is odd, in the modern age where documentarians are so richly rewarded for it, to find naturalist storytelling without horror. But here Doubilet resists, largely, the temptation to bow to the anthropocene: the seal pup goes unclubbed by man, and the man goes uneaten by sharks. The iceberg’s still there. There is almost, if one squints, hope.
Here, also, there be monsters, great big sea monsters, greatly evolved from those found on ancient maps: right beneath our treading toes massive whale sharks lay waiting, and rotting warbirds that once killed men are now home to a thousand things that flit and foam. At the surface, too, there is a hulking, menacing goliath: us, and our garbage. It is not the theme of the book—no, that is simply dumbstruck wonder—but it is punctuation enough to remind us that there is so much beauty in the world that we cannot see, but can surely destroy.
“How inappropriate to call this planet Earth,” wrote Arthur C. Clarke, “when it is quite clearly Ocean.” How inappropriate, too, to call us Man when we are quite clearly water. Here, Doubilet offers, with great poise and great poetry, a compromise. A reminder. A suggestion. Doubilet offers, in perfect drawings of light, a place and a moment where a bird can love a fish, the sky can love the sea and, for a brief instant, in a razor-thin place, we can all be right at home.
B.A. Van Sise for the New York Journal of Books
There are certain rules to putting together a book of photography, and with that in mind it’s necessary to note that Two Worlds: Above and Below the Sea by David Doubilet completely fails.
The first and most important rule is this: as with any artistic portfolio, you must put your best photographs at the beginning, and your best photographs at the end, and in the middle shovel in all of the filler you’d rather everyone not notice. Doubilet fails, here, because he seems to have completely forgotten to include the filler, and instead packed his entire book with an absolutely overwhelming series of perfect photographs.
Now, it’s important that we get to the root of Doubilet’s failings, to better understand where he went wrong here: Did nobody tell him he had an obligation to the larger photographic community to not demoralize them and make every photographer in America feel technically and intellectually inferior? Did nobody tell him that it is impolite to make something like this, but to make it look effortless to boot?
Yes, the longtime National Geographic photographer, who has been taking underwater photographs since the age of 12, has a great deal to answer for.
Doubilet is certainly not the first photographer to bring their lens below the surf; many preceded him, and many will follow. But here a more clever conceit is finally and consistently offered: what happens at the water’s edge, in the one razor-thin place and one lightning-quick moment when the water laps up, where the camera and photographer holding it are witnesses to two worlds. In Fiddler on the Roof, Reb Tevye wisely asks, “a bird may love a fish, but where would they build a home together?” and Doubilet finally offers him an answer: in this place, at this moment, in my hands, in my lens. But blink, and you shall miss it.
It is odd, in the modern age where documentarians are so richly rewarded for it, to find naturalist storytelling without horror. But here Doubilet resists, largely, the temptation to bow to the anthropocene: the seal pup goes unclubbed by man, and the man goes uneaten by sharks. The iceberg’s still there. There is almost, if one squints, hope.
Here, also, there be monsters, great big sea monsters, greatly evolved from those found on ancient maps: right beneath our treading toes massive whale sharks lay waiting, and rotting warbirds that once killed men are now home to a thousand things that flit and foam. At the surface, too, there is a hulking, menacing goliath: us, and our garbage. It is not the theme of the book—no, that is simply dumbstruck wonder—but it is punctuation enough to remind us that there is so much beauty in the world that we cannot see, but can surely destroy.
“How inappropriate to call this planet Earth,” wrote Arthur C. Clarke, “when it is quite clearly Ocean.” How inappropriate, too, to call us Man when we are quite clearly water. Here, Doubilet offers, with great poise and great poetry, a compromise. A reminder. A suggestion. Doubilet offers, in perfect drawings of light, a place and a moment where a bird can love a fish, the sky can love the sea and, for a brief instant, in a razor-thin place, we can all be right at home.
December 28, 2021
Amazing photography.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews