Colours of the Reef is a massive new picture book by Roger Steene that is setting new benchmarks for marine life photography. The sprawling new work consists of three volumes, with more than 7,000 pictures spread across an astounding 1,400 pages.
Roger Steene has been one of the leading marine life photographers for many decades, he has been honored with the pugnacious and beautiful Pseudochromis steenei named after him, and he even has a whole genus, Steeneichthys, to bear his name. This new three piece book is an attempt to collect and condense his best work over his career into an epitome of marine life illustrations.
The seven thousand images in Colours of the Reef are labeled with the genus and species of many different types of reef fish, invertebrates, and corals, although we can only see a preview of the Scleractinia in fluorescent lighting. It is unclear whether there is much information about diving, reef environments of the animals pictured therein, but what is clear is that it’s very laden with more pictures than you have time to look at in a week, or even a month.
The seminal collection of Roger Steene’s photographic work also costs a pretty penny, priced at $350 which includes shipping only in the continental U.S. Of course at this price the book is not really targeted at a mass market audience, but instead is intended to be a true collector’s item, which is why the book is also a limited edition printing. While we won’t be dropping that kind of coin for such a thorough coffee table picture book about reef life, we sure would love to spend some time with it, getting lost in the near endless amount of gorgeous pictures. [New World Publications]
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