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National Geographic Live: David Doubilet and Jennifer Hayes: Coral Kingdoms and Empires of Ice

Wednesday, April 26, 2023 @ 7:00pm



Mayo Performing Arts Center (MPAC)
100 South Street, Morristown, NJ 07960

FREE ADMISSION.

Explore rarely seen undersea worlds with two photographers creating a visual voice for the world’s oceans. David Doubilet is a legend in underwater photography. Together with his wife and underwater partner, photojournalist Jennifer Hayes, in just one remarkable year on assignment, he explored three unique marine environments for National Geographic. Join them to explore the rich and diverse waters of Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea, part of the “coral triangle.” Follow them into the world beneath the Antarctic ice, then north to the Gulf of St. Lawrence to see whales, wolfish and harp seals. Together, they’ll go beyond the published stories to share the reality of “behind-the-camera” adventures.

David Doubilet and Jennifer Hayes are a photographic team for National Geographic magazine focusing on ocean environments. Their photography is a universal language to create a visual voice for a fragile and finite world.

Doubilet began photographing a dark green Atlantic when he first put his Brownie Hawkeye camera in a rubber anesthesiologist’s bag at the age of twelve. He received his first National Geographic assignment while at Boston University. Hayes’ passion for conservation of primitive fishes lead to graduate degrees in zoology and marine ecology that evolved into photography and storytelling to document and share her subjects.

Doubilet and Hayes believe images have the power to inform, illuminate, celebrate, honor, and humiliate —and most importantly, create change. As a team, they wish to promote the power of collaboration and to support emerging ocean advocates of the next generation.



David Doubilet

David Doubilet has a long and intimate vision into the sea. He began snorkeling at age 8 at summer camp in the Adirondacks, and by age 12 he was making pictures underwater using a Brownie Hawkeye camera stuffed into a rubber anesthesiologist bag. The bag filled with air and it was like trying to submerge the Hindenburg. The pictures were barely recognizable. Doubilet has long since mastered the techniques of working with water and light to become one of the world’s most celebrated underwater photographers and a contributing photographer for National Geographic magazine, where he has published nearly 70 stories since his first assignment in 1971.

Doubilet has spent five decades under the surface in the far corners of the world—from interior Africa, remote tropical coral reefs, rich temperate seas, and recent projects in the northern and southern ice. Doubilet’s personal challenge is to create a visual voice for the world’s oceans and to connect people to the incredible beauty and silent devastation happening within the invisible world below.

Doubilet is a contributing editor for several publications and an author of 12 titles, including the award-winning Water Light Time. His photographic awards include numerous Picture of the Year, BBC Wildlife, Communication Arts and World Press awards. Doubilet is a member of the Academy of Achievement, Royal Photographic Society, International League of Conservation Photographers, International Diving Hall of Fame and a Trustee of the Shark Research Institute. Doubilet was named a National Geographic Contributing Photographer-in-Residence in 2001. He is honored to be a Rolex Ambassador and recipient of the prestigious Explorers Club Lowell Thomas Award and Lennart Nilsson Award for Scientific Photography.

Doubilet lives with his wife and photographic partner, Jennifer Hayes in Clayton, New York, a small river town in the Thousand Island region of the St. Lawrence River.

Jennifer Hayes

Jennifer Hayes is an aquatic biologist and photojournalist specializing in natural history and marine environments. Jennifer Hayes and David Doubilet collaborate as a photographic team above and below water on project development, story production, feature articles, and books.

National Geographic assignments have taken them around the globe—to Africa’s Okavango Delta, through tropical and temperate seas, and to the poles.  Recent projects have found them in the remote corners of the Great Barrier Reef, under oil and gas rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, swimming among congregations of 500-pound goliath grouper, and submerged in the ice with harp seal mother and pups.

Hayes is the editor and author of numerous articles on marine environments, with images appearing in countless books, advertising campaigns, and publications such as National GeographicSports IllustratedSport DiverDIVE MagazineDiverPeopleAlert Diver and Ocean Geographic. She is co-author / photographer for Face to Face with Sharks by National Geographic Books and an honorary editor for Ocean Geographic magazine.

Hayes’ passion for the study and conservation of primitive fishes led to graduate degrees in zoology and marine biology. Her research has included shark exploitation and finning in the western North Atlantic and the life history and population dynamics of sturgeon species. Hayesis a Trustee for the Shark Research Institute and a Fellow National member of the Explorers Club.

Hayes and Doubilet co-own their studio and stock photography company, Undersea Images Inc., located on the St. Lawrence River in Clayton, New York.




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