Up close and personal: capturing the jellyfish on camera, stings and all

Diver and photographer Alexander Semenov braves Russia's freezing White Sea to explore the wonders beneath

It looks like a bloody organ wrenched from a human body. In fact, this is a lion's mane jellyfish. Shot last summer in Russia's White Sea by diver and photographer Alexander Semenov, it is one of a host of underwater creatures few would want to meet. But Semenov is different. "I think I'm [a] lucky guy," he says, reflecting on his opportunity to both see these remarkable creatures for himself, and reveal their splendour to others.

The son of two biologists, Semenov is head of a team of scientific divers at the White Sea Biological Station. He sees himself akin to "a 19th-century naturalist" in his approach to investigating and probing the planet's myriad lifeforms.