Luis Marden

Luis Marden (born Annibale Luigi Paragallo) (January 25, 1913 – March 3, 2003) was an American photographer, explorer, writer, filmmaker, diver, navigator, and linguist who worked for

, both on land and underwater, and also made many discoveries in the world of science.

Though he officially retired in 1976, Marden continued to write occasional stories. In total, he wrote more than 60 articles for the magazine.

Background

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Born in

His expertise in color photography subsequently brought him to National Geographic magazine, where he was officially hired on July 23, 1934. The magazine prided itself on publishing quality color photography, and Marden was making good use of a lightweight Leica, which could hang from a single neck strap. Marden persuaded the magazine to see the benefits of using the small 35mm cameras loaded with the new Kodachrome film over the bulky cameras with tripods and glass plates that were being used by the magazine's photographers at the time.

Marden's first assignment as a reporter was in the

• In 1941 he dove off Antigua, where he saw his first coral reef. Marden's knowledge of Spanish led to his appointment during World War II as National Geographic's "Latin America man," and Marden was sent on assignments throughout Central America, most notably In Nicaragua, which he visited for almost an entire month in mid July 1944, then South America, and the Caribbean.
• Deciding he wanted to photograph the riches of the deep, Marden worked with Jacques Cousteau aboard the Calypso in the mid-1950s. A pioneer of underwater color photography, Marden developed many techniques in this field that are still used today, such as the use of filters and auxiliary lighting in order to enhance color.
• Marden and fellow National Geographic photographer
  recompression chamber at a power plant in Mérida failed, and the two men were airlifted to Panama City, Florida, where they were successfully treated at the Navy Mine Defense Laboratory.^[1]
• Marden discovered the remains of
  MGM had a reconstruction of the Bounty built for their 1962 film, also named Bounty. This vessel was built, of wood, to the original plans, in a traditional manner in a shipyard in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia
  . However, all the dimensions were increased by approximately one third to accommodate the large cameras in use at that time.
• At the island of
  Kon-Tiki expedition) in the June 1985 issue of the Pacific Islands Monthly. Danielsson identified Bligh's cave as lying on the sheltered northwest coast, where Bligh identified it; Marden's cave lies on the exposed southeast coast. Additionally, Danielsson thought it highly unlikely that the Tofuans would have allotted any grave site to Norton, or that the grave, if allotted, would have been preserved for two centuries.^[3]
• For the October 1985 story "In Bounty's Wake: Finding the Wreck of the HMS Pandora," Marden dove off the coast of Cape York Peninsula, Australia, in 1984 to cover the wreck of HMS Pandora, the ship sent to capture the Bounty mutineers. Pandora had foundered on an Australian reef with manacled prisoners still inside a deckhouse cell.^[4]

Marden and the Guanahani debate

In 1986 Marden and his wife Ethel Cox Marden, who was trained as a

Marden made his own bamboo fishing rods. In 1997, he published his second book, The Angler's Bamboo, which not only describes the cultivation and processing of Tonkin bamboo, but also traces the history of the split-bamboo fishing rod.[7]

Other activities

• Marden worked for
  rocket launches and the activities of the Project Mercury
  astronauts.
• He was a founding member of the Sea Research Society and served on its board of advisers. In 1972 he participated in the creation of the research/professional degree of doctor of marine histories.
• He also made 11 travelogue films for the Society's lecture series.
• In the early 1990s, he flew
  ultralight aircraft
  . Marden owned and piloted a Quicksilver MX from Whitman's Strip, a small airport in the Virginia countryside.

Friendships and honors

Marden served as chief of the National Geographic foreign editorial staff, in which capacity he met and maintained friendships with

After Marden moved to a nursing home in 1998, the house was purchased and refurbished by Jim Kimsey, co-founder of AOL, in 2000 for $2.5 million.

Discoveries

• Credited with the discovery of the remains of the HMS Bounty off the coast of Bounty Bay, Pitcairn Island, in January 1957
• The National Geographic Society in Washington holds a specimen of an Aepyornis egg that was discovered by Marden in 1967 in Madagascar. The specimen is intact and contains an embryonic skeleton of the unborn bird.
• Discovered the orchid Epistephium mardenii in Brazil. Described in Marden's April 1971 article on orchids, "The Exquisite Orchids." The name is actually a synonym for Epistephium duckei.^[9]
• Discovered a deepwater
  Dolobrotus mardeni (Amphipoda order, Gammaridea suborder, Eusiridae family).^[10]
• His reporting of a sea anemone in the Red Sea flashing different colors became the first published report of submarine or underwater fluorescence.^[11]

Named after Marden

• The orchid species Epistephium mardenii
• The sea flea
  Dolobrotus mardeni

References