I pulled this video short from Hollywod Vaults, where I store the 1,000’s of photographic slides and video footage accumulated throughout my photographic career. I sent the 3/4″ Sony videotape master to The Media Preserve. The Media Preserve is a really cool place for preservation, restoration, update, and duplication services. We found their international headquarters a short distance from our Force Fin factory in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania.
In 2000, my wife, Susanne Chess, and I, along with our good friend and associate Vince Quaranta, On-Q, produced “Vision.” It premiered at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Campbell Hall.
What is your Vision?
Transcript: This is the story of what Vision can inspire. After logging 1000’s of hours photo-documenting the California Channel Islands both freely and through a series of camera sites strategically mounted in rich areas a group of marine photographers decided to check out the canopy effect of the offshore oil platforms.
Just off the Santa Barbara coast nutrient rich water flows freely through the structure. Marine life attaches and grows to enormous size. Before our very eyes barren steel pipe transformed into lush marine communities. Cabezon became our friends. We eagerly awaited the hatching of their eggs. In this beautiful garden we observed schools of fish dancing through the platform legs. The canopy of the structure offers them protection similar to a kelp forest or a reef.
Diving daily we were able to observe marine life developing and ecosystem patterns that no one had ever had the opportunity to see or document before. We piloted programs strategically seeding starfish to naturally manage mussel growth. We used time lapse photography to learn even more. All this life and activity inspired many fishing enhancement programs. We were there to photo-document their progress. These habitats were nurseries for abalone and scallop.
This is a vision of our past that holds our future. The future is here today.
The Pacific Offshore Continental Shelf Platforms support marine eco-systems among the most productive of any reef documented in our Oceans globally. As we prepare for the decommissioning of eight of the twenty-three platforms, we feel compelled to share a piece of our history with this unique environment to inspire your own vision about their future.
What is your Vision?
Please share by contacting us