Beneath the ocean’s surface lies a world of staggering detail and constant transformation, where creatures too small to notice perform some of the sea’s most mysterious dances. Japanese photographer Ryo Minemizu has spent over two decades exploring this hidden realm, devoting his career to capturing the fleeting beauty of plankton in their larval stages. These organisms, though minuscule, display breathtaking complexity as they drift through the coastal tides. By studying the rhythms of the sea — its wind patterns, currents, and lunar cycles — Minemizu developed a highly precise method for locating and photographing these elusive beings at the moment they begin their metamorphosis into adult forms.
Minemizu’s Phenomenons series transforms marine biology into visual poetry. Using custom-built lighting rigs and sophisticated macro photography, he isolates individual plankton against an inky black background, creating images that seem to defy nature. Electric blues, glowing reds, and glass-like translucence give each photo an abstract, otherworldly quality. Despite their fantastical appearance, the subjects are entirely real — unmanipulated portraits taken in natural underwater environments. Each shot is the result of patience, precision, and an intimate understanding of the creatures’ lifecycles.
In these luminous frames, the ordinary becomes extraordinary. Through his work, Minemizu captures the fleeting existence of organisms that live between darkness and light — brief sparks that drift, glow, and vanish with the tides. “Plankton symbolize how precious life is by their tiny existence”, he explains. “I wanted other people to see them as they are in the sea, so it was my motivation from the beginning to shoot plankton underwater, which is quite a challenge. Most plankton are small, and their movements are hard to predict”.
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