SUZAN MELDONIAN

Ever since Sea Hunt, I was hooked. I am fascinated by the bizarre and unusual looking creatures, and have a strange affinity for jellyfish and dangerous sea life. I love capturing the spirit of the animal, its personality or it traits. Behavior shots are my fave and the most exciting.

Recently I have plunged into Black Water Fever… that is to say, Black Water diving. This is specialized diving with skilled Captains and Crew on board to guard our safety, as we are diving out in the Atlantic Gulf Stream Current. Every night there occurs what is referred to as a Vertical Migration, wherein strange little planktonic and pelagic beasties come up from the depths to feed or be fed upon by the dark of night. Honestly, you never know what you are going to see. Mostly very tiny critters no bigger than a pinhead to jellyfish 6 feet long. I currently photograph with Nikon D7100 in Nauticam housing with a 60mm + a 10x diopter, dual strobes and dual focus lights.

Suzan has recently won a number of awards, including 2016-17 1st Place Ocean Geographic’s Photojournalist Award, Honorable Mention in Small Exotic Ocean Geographic, Honorable Mention Portraits Ocean Geographic’s top images 2016, Scubashooters 3rd Place Macro, Smithsonian’s top 10, National Geographic’s Your Shot, Underwater Macro Photography and DRT Philippines top 100, Underwater Photography.com. Her stories and images have been published in EZ Dive Magazine, Underwater Dive Photo Guide, and is a contributor to Scuba Shooters.net and Pura Vida’s Blog on Black water.