2nd March 2004
Last night I
woke about 1.30am, seemed impossible to get back to sleep. Then there
was a point where I gave up and decided on a walk on the beach
So here I am
in a warm mist 1.30am in the darkness on the beach. Walked to the
end of the sand where the rocks are, stood still - closed my eyes
breathed deep the salt air. And then after a while began the walk
back again.
There in front
of me was a small glowing object on the sand, I had seen lots of foss-
fluorescence in Hawaii, and glow worms around here but never anything
like this. I picked it and it turned out to be a sand hopper ( Talorchestia)
. Fascinated, I carried it all the way back home, and had this idea
about using it to make a photogram by having it crawl all over the
paper. It was an idea I had a while back, but the old luminous sand
hoppers are not your everyday item, in fact I had never heard of them
before. Later I discovered that the luminance came not from the Talorchestia
itself, but from bacteria that attacks the sand hopper.
I had no idea
for how long to let it crawl about on the paper Anyway sort of made
a trap with some magnetic bars inside a box cover so it could crawl
about and not get out, laid the paper over the top of this with the
emulsion side down and figured it could expose the paper all night,
so I went to bed for some ZZZZZ. In the morning the sand hopper had
escaped - it was gone not a sign - but I develop the paper and there
was a subtle but wonderful set of abstractions as it had crawled about
on it route to freedom.
Probably the
strangest photogram I have ever made.
The
box lid with the magnets arranged in an enclosure to keep the
sand hopper (Talorchestia) in.
|
|
The
resulting Luminogram as the sand hopper ( Talorchestia) made
its escape.
|
|
Detail from
the sand hopper ( Talorchestia) image
|
|