At a glance
What: Artist's reception for award-winning underwater photographer John Muhilly, for his new show, "Changing Day," featuring images from his recent trip to Wakatobi, Indonesia.
When: 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday.
Where: Red Brick Gallery, 315 E. Main St., Ventura.
Information: For more, call 643-6400 or visit http://www.redbrickart.com.
While attending CSU Monterey Bay, avid scuba diver John Muhilly worked in the office of an underwater photographer.
"I never once left the office, but it exposed me to what was out there," Muhilly said. "I made a list of places I wanted to see."
Now Muhilly, who lives in Simi Valley, is making a name for himself in the art world with his own underwater photographs. Since he started, less than two years ago, he has won a best of show in the professional division at the Ventura County Fair, he exhibited his work in the juried opening exhibit of the Studio Channel Islands Art Center's new gallery in Camarillo last month and he is participating in his second exhibit at the Red Brick Gallery in Ventura. In the Red Brick Gallery show, "Changing Day," he is exhibiting new images from a recent trip to Wakatobi, Indonesia.
Muhilly grew up in San Francisco and would sometimes borrow his dad's cameras and shoot images at Golden Gate Park. When he was 16, he decided to get his scuba certification.
"I took the only $300 I had and I ate Top Ramen for a week," he said.
To get certified, he had to do four ocean dives at Breakwater in Monterey.
"I thought, ‘This is for me,'" he said. "It brought fulfillment and purpose to my life. I went home and I figured out how I was going to get myself into that college (CSU Monterey Bay)."
He took prerequisite courses at Skyline College in San Bruno and got accepted at Monterey Bay, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 2002 in earth systems, science and policy. He was looking for a way to earn money and keep diving when friends turned him on to fire science. He completed firefighter/EMT training and then went on to UCLA/Daniel Freeman for paramedic training.
"Then doors opened for me," Muhilly said. He was hired five years ago by the Ventura County Fire Department.
"That was a busy period," he said. "For about two years I didn't dive. I had sold a lot of my dive gear to go to paramedic school."
When he was able to, he bought dive gear and underwater camera housing and started diving again, taking his first trip to Costa Rica. In 2008, he signed up for an underwater video/photo workshop on the island of Bonaire in the Caribbean.
While shooting at lunch one day, he saw an iguana in the water and was able to get shots of it. One of the resulting images got him a best of show award at the workshop and $4,000 of underwater camera housing.
"That jumpstarted me into taking underwater photos," he said.
Muhilly went to Malaysia and then the Philippines, visiting a lot of places he had put on that list in college. He dives with his girlfriend and uses strobes to light up the scene for the photograph. Most of the images are captured at 30 to 80 feet below the surface.
"That is the prime zone where you find the interesting things," he said.
"A lot of times when you dive, you think there isn't anything there; you are looking for tiny things," he said — things like pygmy seahorses living on sea fans, clingfish living in the tentacles of a crinoid and shrimp the size of grains of rice.
He's been stung in the face by jellyfish in Costa Rica, and was yanked out of the water by the boat crew when he was suddenly visited by orcas (not the friendly kind) while diving in the Honduran Roatan Islands, but it has not deterred him.
"In February we are going to take photos of the manatees in Florida," he said. "And in June we are going to take photos of tiger sharks in the Bahamas."
He takes 500 to 800 images a day, both underwater and topside, he said.
After selecting the best images, he has them printed on aluminum.
"It's like a finely waxed car," he said. "The images really pop. Those are the true colors; I don't manipulate it."
— To recommend an artist to be profiled in this section, or for more information, contact Nicole D'Amore at ArtProfiles@roadrunner.com or 405-0364.