Bio

My name is Pepe Manzanilla. I was born in Puebla, Mexico, in 1972, into a family where photography was always present: I grew up watching my father and grandfather with their cameras, and I developed my first roll of film as a child in the darkroom my father built at home. Before I devoted myself fully to images, I spent years underwater. I worked as a dive guide in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, among reefs and subaquatic caves, and there I learned something that still shapes my work: patience, respect for the environment, and the certainty that nature sets its own rules. More than fifteen years ago I arrived in Costa Rica, and this country gave my photography its direction. Its biodiversity — from rainforest to ocean — became my subject and my cause. Over time I developed my split photography, using underwater domes to capture the threshold where two worlds meet, above and below the waterline. It's the way I found to show how connected those spaces really are, even though we tend to see them apart. That work has led to recognition I value deeply: in 2023 One Eyeland named me one of the World's Top 10 Wildlife Photographers, and in 2024 I was named International Photographer of the Year. My work has also been recognized at the Siena Creative Photo Awards, has appeared in books on Costa Rica's national parks and Cocos Island, and I have contributed photographs to scientific and academic publications. But beyond the awards, photography is how I advocate for the natural world. I work closely with conservation organizations and am a member of the NAMA conservation team. Every image I make is, at its heart, an invitation to look more closely at — and to protect — the world we share.