Underwater photo exhibit makes land debut

An Austrian art photographer's exhibit, once displayed 95 feet deep on a sunken ship in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, has debuted onshore.

Andreas Franke's "The Sinking World" opened Thursday night at The Studios of Key West. The exhibit features digitally composited images of the Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg, a former military vessel scuttled in 2009 to become an artificial reef off Key West.

Franke photographed the wreck and digitally added elements, creating haunting images such as a young girl wielding a butterfly net to capture fish.

The large photographs were sandwiched in plexiglass and displayed on the Vandenberg for almost five months.

Barnacles, algae and other marine organisms grew on them and slight water leaks altered the images to create the work being exhibited through Feb. 15.