Marine Specimens
2013-2020
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.
Selections from this series formed the traveling solo exhibit, Treasures from the Scripps Collections (2019-2020), and were displayed as an interactive installation in Oddities: Hidden Heroes of the Scripps Collections, at the Birch Aquarium at UC San Diego (2019-2023).
Please inquire for available works from this series. Prints are limited edition archival pigment prints in two sizes.
Selene peruviana, 1973
Stenoplax conspicua. La Jolla, CA, 1953.
Sea spider.
Colossendeis sp. McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, 1977.
Parophrys vetulus. San Francisco Bay, 1913.
Scomberomorus maculatus. Sanibel Island, Florida, 1935.
Argonauta nouryi Lorois. La Paz, Mexico, 1985.
Chaenocephalus aceratus. Brabant Islands, Antarctic Peninsula, 1975.
Unidentified Octopus. Bikini Lagoon, 1952.
Siphonophore. La Jolla Canyon, California, 2017.
Lysiosquillina maculata. Nuku Hiva Island, Marquesas, 1979.
Achirus mazatlanus. Bahia Magdalena, Mexico, 1962.
Murex pecten. Thailand, 2009.
Octopus bimaculoides. Colonia Erenira, Mexico, 1961.
Egg Cases of a Large Predatory Sea Snail. Banderas Bay, Mexico, 1961.
Grammtobothus polyophthalmus. Gulf of Thailand, 1960.