Laurent BallestaLaurent Ballesta was the youngest photographer ever to receive the prestigious Gold Diver award at the International Festival of Underwater Images held in Antibes.

In 1999, he was named scientific advisor in marine settings for the TV seriesUshuaia Nature, alongside the explorer and show host Nicolas Hulot. For 12 consecutive years, he made the most of his travels in expanding his compendium of deep-sea fauna from across the world.

In 2000, alongside Pierre Descamp, he founded the Eye of Andromeda Association, in the aim of reconciling oceanological studies with an artistic appreciation of the marine environment. This effort would lead in 2008 to the creation of a company, named Oceanological Andromeda.

In 2007, he shot the deepest photograph ever taken by a diver, at 190 m (623 ft) underwater off the coast of Nice.

In 2009, he organized a covert expedition to South Africa to realize a dream, namely diving with Gombessa (another name given to the area's coelacanth fish) and bringing back the very first photograph of the living fossil taken by a diver 120 m (393 ft) underwater. This mission would lead to the first Gombessa expedition, 4 years later, to carry out the initial scientific protocols on a living coelacanth specimen at a depth of 120 m (393 ft).

Since then, Laurent Ballesta has led 4 Gombessa expeditions: The Grouper Mystery (2015), Antarctica, On the Footsteps of the Emperor (2017), and 700 Sharks in the Dead of Night (2018).

In 2017, The Hidden Face of the Iceberg, ushered in History's first photographic series revealing an iceberg in its entirety, and earning him the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year award in the category Earth Environments. Laurent Ballesta is now renowned as one of the world's leading underwater photographers. Read More Read Less