Marine Specimens
Why did someone collect a small, still-unidentified octopus from Bikini Atoll ten days before the detonation of the first true H-bomb? What can these specimens and their jars tell us about what it was like there, at that time, in that place?
I have been photographing in the marine collections of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography since 2013. There are millions of specimens housed in four collection departments that represent the physical records of our understanding of life in the ocean.
Installation Views for Treasures from the Scripps Collection (2019)
Selene peruviana, 1973
Stenoplax conspicua. La Jolla, CA, 1953.
Parophrys vetulus. San Francisco Bay, 1913.
Colossendeis sp. McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, 1977.
Argonauta nouryi Lorois. La Paz, Mexico, 1985.
Sea spider.
Gymnothorax meleagris. Oahu, Hawaii, 1968.
Diodon holacanthus. Islas Tres Marias, Mexico, 1960.
Scomberomorus maculatus. Sanibel Island, Florida, 1935.
Murex pecten. Thailand, 2009.
Egg Cases of a Large Predatory Sea Snail. Banderas Bay, Mexico, 1961.
Melanocetus johnsoni. Southeast Pacific Ocean, 1972.
Unidentified Octopus. Bikini Lagoon, 1952.
Achirus mazatlanus. Bahia Magdalena, Mexico, 1962.
Chaenocephalus aceratus. Brabant Islands, Antarctic Peninsula, 1975.
Lysiosquillina maculata. Nuku Hiva Island, Marquesas, 1979.
Ranzania laevis, 1976.
Octopus bimaculoides. Colonia Erenira, Mexico, 1961.
Grammtobothus polyophthalmus. Gulf of Thailand, 1960.
Siphonophore. La Jolla Canyon, California, 2017.
Physalia physalis, 1970.
Riftia pachyptila. Gulf of California, Mexico, 2015.