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Feodor Pitcairn

Feodor Pitcairn began photographing wildlife in his teens, and since 1967 has worked predominantly underwater, with a growing fascination for portraying marine animals within the context of the underwater seascape. He has spent over 3,000 hours underwater, photographing and filming remote ocean wilds across the world.

In 1981, his photography exhibit, Galapagos: Born of the Sea opened at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History and then went on a four-year tour with the Smithsonian Institute Traveling Exhibits. In 1984, the New York Graphic Society (Little, Brown) published Hidden Seascapes, a collection of Feodor's photographs emphasizing his concept of portraying the seascape in natural light. A portfolio of his natural light photographs was published in Audubon in 1989.

In 1991 he retired from his business life in order to devote his full time and attention to the creation of productions for television and cinema. Ocean Wilds, a 5-part series and ten-year effort of enormous magnitude shot in locations all over the world, was the first production completed. The last 2 shows of the series introduced the production company’s use of state-of-the-art High-Definition technology. Ocean Wilds made it's on-air debut on world wide broadcast television and PBS in 2001.

In 2007, Ocean Voyagers, a feature on humpback whales narrated by Meryl Streep, premiered on Discovery’s Animal Planet and was broadcast internationally. Ocean Voyagers won Best of Nature at the Jules Verne Film Festival in Paris, Best Cinematography at the International Wildlife Film Festival, and was an official selection of the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival and Wildscreen.

2008 saw the completion of Ocean Odyssey, an 8-screen HD media installation and film for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History’s Sant Ocean Hall. This challenging three-year project required Feodor Pitcairn Productions to break new ground in HD post-production techniques to deliver this custom, site-specific exhibit.
In 2010, Feo made yet another career decision; he would return to his first love of still photography, retiring the production companies efforts in film and television production.

Always an early adopter of new technologies, Feo acquired the new Hasselblad H4D-40 Medium Format DSLR. The H4D-40 camera features a 33x44 mm CCD sensor with 40 million pixels. Outfitted with an underwater housing, Feo immediately set out to field test his new camera through a variety of rigorous shoots in demanding locations, including Africa, Iceland and Indonesia.

Today Feo continues in his pursuit, capturing still images of living seascapes and landscapes that tell a story about both habitat and inhabitant.

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