Liquid
Underwater Photography
by Dr. Klaus M. Stiefel
University of Western Sydney,
Bankstown Campus, Art Gallery, Building 23
February 10th – March 14th
Opening with free beer, wine & cheese on February 10th, 5:30 pm
Artist Biography:
Klaus Stiefel grew up in Vienna, Austria, and graduated in microbiology from the University in Vienna in 1998. He then moved to Frankfurt, Germany (doctoral work), San Diego, USA and Okinawa, Japan, before joining the MARCS Institute at the University of Western Sydney in 2011. Since learning to scuba dive in Sicily, Italy in 1988, he has been an admirer of the underwater world. In 2005 he took up underwater photography, and has since won a number of photographic competitions and exhibited his work in 2013 in the Blank Space Gallery in Sydney. This exhibition is a cross-section of Klaus’ photographic work, featuring animals from large sharks to tiny shrimp, from places like Palau, the Philippines, Bali, the Great Barrier Reef and Sydney. Klaus is teaching an underwater photography workshop every September in the Philippines and authored “Sex, Drugs and Scuba Diving”, a popular account of marine biology.
The underwater word is under threat from pollution, unsustainable fishing practices, climate change and deliberate destruction (like the shark cull in Western Australia). I hope these images convey how beautiful it is, and that it’s undoubtedly worth conserving for future generations.
That’s where it’s at: