Living Lights of the Ocean: An avant-garde vision of the aquatic world

The photo series, entitled 'Living Lights of the Ocean', was a collaboration between Ermakov, set designer Venera Kazarova, photographer Dasha Yastrebova and image retoucher Alex Tikhonov. The shoot took about three months to prepare for, and shooting was non-stop for four intensive days.

The team spent a long time discussing who these creatures were and where they might live. They eventually settled on the concept of strange, deep-water animals living in a dark ocean space where they illuminated everything around them; a world that Kazarova ended up creating entirely with black paper.

After the shoot, postproduction took about a year, involving work with layers and colour correction and additions such as algae, fish, glow effects and glare. The result is a unique sub-oceanic world populated by amazing creatures that you can't quite believe are actually people dressed in costumes.