Tag: photography

More than a DodoLeave a comment

Through the looking glass

With our Life, As We Know It redisplay project now underway, our Senior Archives and Library Assistant Danielle Czerkaszyn takes a behind-the-scenes look at how we captured the contents of the current displays for the Museum’s archive.

The archive here holds a unique collection of natural history books, journals and documents covering a wide range of subjects related to the Museum’s collections and research. It also contains papers and objects on the history of the building, providing an institutional memory of Oxford’s ‘University Museum’ since its foundation in 1860.

From an archive perspective it was really important to document the current layout of the cases, their specimens and text before they were removed from the court to make way for the new showcases in the first phase of our redisplay work.

The museum in late 2019

The displays as we know them – with exhibitions on the Oxfordshire dinosaurs, Alice in Wonderland, the Oxford Dodo, and more – were last changed in 2000. For the last 20 years visitors to the Museum would remember their first time being wowed by the Megalosaurus jaw – the world’s first scientifically-described dinosaur – or charmed by the Dodo made famous in Lewis Carroll’s Alice Adventures in Wonderland.

Although after 20 years it is time for a change, the stories and information in the displays are too good to be forgotten. So before anything was removed we began to build the archive for the future.

A display of the fossilised remains of Megalosaurus
The previous display on Megalosaurus: The First Dinosaur

The best way to capture all the information of the displays was through high resolution photography, but this was not as straightforward as we hoped.

The first two obstacles to good photographs are pretty obvious to anyone looking at the cases: glass causes huge amounts of glare; and each case has a big dividing line down the centre where the two sliding glass doors meet, cutting what should be a lovely seamless image into two halves.

To avoid glare and the solve the problem of the dividing line, our photographer Scott opened each individual side of the case, photographed two or three images of the display, and then stitched the separate photos together using Photoshop.

Each case was photographed in two or three segments
The segments were then stitched back together and adjusted for exposure and colour balance to create the final image

Another obstacle to taking good photographs of the displays came from the Museum itself. Some of our larger display furniture, such as the glass case for the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna or the huge T. rex plinth – got in the way of a nice straight shot. Because these items are so large and heavy they were impossible to move, so we had to improvise and do our best.

Capturing the displays before the current cases were removed allowed us to keep an archival record of their contents

Thankfully, we managed to get shots of all 24 displays before they were removed and so a record of each case now rests with the Museum’s archive. If anyone wants to know what the display cases in the court looked like from 2000 to 2020, they will now be able to look back at the images in the archive and recall the magic of the Oxford Dodo exhibit that perhaps first made them fall in love with the Museum.

Our new displays are now in development, and will include some beautiful presentations of the diversity of life, looking at the importance and fragility of biodiversity and human impact on the environment. These new exhibits will show how the biological processes of evolution combine with the geological processes of our dynamic Earth to give rise to the immense, interconnected variety of the natural world.

We look forward to telling you more about that here as the project progresses.

The Life, As We Know It redisplay project is supported by a generous grant from FCC Communities Foundation.

More than a Dodo4 Comments

Paint it green

In the process of researching or conserving old pinned insects, it’s common to find a green deposit clustered around the pin. This is known as verdigris and is a natural patina created when the metal oxidizes over time. Katherine Child is Image Technician in the Museum’s Life collections and takes photos of insects for researchers, students, artists and publications. She is also an artist in her own right, so when she witnessed verdigris being removed during a conservation project, she came up with an inspired idea.

A clearwing moth before conservation, showing verdigris spreading where the metal and the insect fats, or lipids, react.

A few years ago I read a book called Colour: Travels Through the Paintbox, by Victoria Finlay, and was interested to learn that verdigris was once used as a pigment. Verdigris, which I now know translates from French as ‘Green of Greece’, is a word that’s been in my vocabulary since I was small.  I loved its rich bright blue-green colour, which is often seen on old copper piping or copper statues.

Verdigris forms when copper or a copper alloy reacts with water, oxygen, carbon dioxide or sulphur.

L: Three years’ worth of verdigris, ground and ready to make into paint.
R: A second attempt at mixing the paint, this time using linseed oil.

As early as 5thcentury AD, it was used in paint-making, and until the late 19th century it was the most vibrant green pigment available. But it was unstable – Leonardo da Vinci warned that it ‘vanishes into thin air if not varnished quickly.’ These days synthetic pigments provide a more constant alternative.

Despite its past uses, verdigris is a big problem in pinned insect collections. Nowadays stainless steel pins are used, but pins containing copper still remain in old collections and these react with air and insect fats. The more fatty the insect, the more verdigris tends to form and, if left, it can damage a specimen irreparably.

Comprising around five million or so insects, the Hope Entomological Collections here in the Museum take quite a bit of looking after. A few years ago a project to catalogue and conserve many of its butterfly and moth specimens was undertaken and the removal of verdigris and repining of insects was part of this.

With paint-making in mind, I asked that the beautiful, but problematic, substance be saved.  About three years on I finally got around to using the pigment, which I had also been adding to while photographing the collections.

I chose a variety of differently shaped moths to paint (most of the verdigris came from moths, so moths seemed the most apt subject). To narrow my options further I went for green moths. Some of the specimens I chose had verdigris on their pin, so I was able to take pigment and use it to paint the very specimens from which it came!

Katherine tested out the newly made verdigris paint in her sketchbook.

After a first failed attempt to make watercolour paint (during which pigment and water remained stubbornly separate due to the greasy insect fats still present), I tried again, this time using linseed oil to make oil paint – and it worked! Traditionally a flat bottomed tool called a muller was used to press pigment into the water or oil. Not having one of these, I used the flat end of a pestle and a mortar which did the trick.

A Miscellany of Moths, the finished verdigris painting.

The paint went surprisingly far and, following on from the 14 green moths, I plan to use up the remainder to paint beetles.

Katherine’s Miscellany of Moths painting can be seen on display in the Museum’s Community Case until 18th October.

Ellena Grillo3 Comments

A photographer’s eagle eye

3-landing-on-snow-800px

To coincide with our display of the Oxford Photographic Society‘s annual show, here Society member Ron Perkins recounts how he captured these great shots of the magnificent Bald Eagle.

Bald eagles, the national birds of the USA, are charismatic, powerful creatures. Young eagles are tawny brown but acquire their majestic black plumage, with white heads, after two years.

In early winter the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve attracts up to 3,000 eagles which pause on their seasonal migration to the south in order to feed on the salmon that swim up the river to spawn.

2-eating-salmon-800-px
A Bald Eagle eating salmon on the river bank

Having discovered this photo opportunity via the internet I easily recruited three Oxford Photographic Society members to travel to Alaska. The journey took two and a half days via Seattle and Juneau by air and on to the small town of Haines by an 80-mile ferry trip.  Haines is near the Pacific coast so although there was snowfall most days the daytime temperatures were about -5C.  Each day we drove 20 miles along the banks of the river to the best photographic locations to get our shots.

4-adult-attacking-800px
An adult eagle attacking a juvenile

After spawning, the fish die in the shallows at the edges of the river. Then the eagles drag the dead salmon onto the snow-covered banks. The fish weigh up to 15 pounds so moving them is difficult; some adult eagles watch juvenile birds moving the salmon onto the riverbanks and then attack to drive away the juveniles.

1-noticeboard-800px
Arriving at the preserve

Eagles always attack into the wind, so it is easy to plan and position yourself to capture these shots. And the combination of large numbers of eagles with frequent dramatic action is a powerful attraction for wildlife photographers.

Oxford Photographic Society’s Natural World exhibition runs until Sunday 22 January in the Museum’s Café Gallery.

 

 

More than a DodoLeave a comment

Making Microsculpture

Microsculpture

Today we are excited to be opening our new special exhibition, Microsculpture: The Insect Photography of Levon Biss. You may well have already heard about Microsculpture, and have perhaps watched the video showing how Levon Biss made these incredible portraits of insects from the Museum’s collection.

As we open the show in the Museum’s main court we wanted to give a little more insight into the process that Dr James Hogan, an entomologist in our Life Collections, went through to select and describe the specimens for the project. So I put a few questions to James to explain the making of Microsculpture from his point of view.

James Hogan (right) selecting specimens with Levon Biss
James Hogan (right) selecting specimens with Levon Biss

There are 23 specimens on show in the exhibition: how did you choose these particular ones?
We wanted a wide variety of specimens that would all show some interesting surface detail. Some were also chosen for their spectacular colours, interesting shapes or strange appearance.

Splendid-necked Dung Beetle (Helictopleurus splendidicollis). From Madagascar. Length: 10 mm
Splendid-necked Dung Beetle (Helictopleurus splendidicollis) from
Madagascar. Length: 10 mm

But perhaps 95 per cent of the specimens we initially considered were rejected because we had some pretty strict criteria; very hairy specimens, which includes most bees, were out as the image processing was too difficult; the specimens had to be intact, so no broken antennae or legs.

Probably the biggest problem was finding specimens which were clean enough. Because Levon’s technique reveals so much detail, any dirt on the specimen is glaringly obvious. And the whole idea was to look at the surface structures, which are obviously very small and easily obscured by any dirt.

How did you prepare them for their close-ups?
All the specimens needed a bit of preparation work before being ready for Levon’s photography. First they needed to be remounted on the end of long pins to allow more clearance space for the lighting setup. Some of the specimens are very small and fragile and this is the stage where damage is most likely to occur.

After remounting, all the insects needed at least some degree of cleaning under the microscope. For this I used a range of fine paintbrushes; we also make our own tools from micro-pins bent into different points and hooks. Again, I had to be careful to not damage the specimens – easily done by over-enthusiastic cleaning!

Where do the specimens come from?
The specimens in the exhibition are from the Museum’s very large insect collection, stored behind the scenes in many different rooms. The insects in the show are from all over the world, from a back garden in England to a remote island near Antarctica. Some were collected over 150 years ago while others were collected very recently by Museum staff.

Of particular historical significance is the Tricolored Jewel Beetle (Belionota sumptuosa) which was collected by the Victorian naturalist and explorer Alfred Russel Wallace, co-publisher of the theory of evolution with Charles Darwin in 1858.

Tricolored Jewel Beetle (Belionota sumptuosa), collected by Alfred Russel Wallace in Seram Island, Indonesia. Length: 25 mm
Tricolored Jewel Beetle (Belionota sumptuosa), collected by Alfred Russel Wallace in Seram Island, Indonesia. Length: 25 mm

How big are the actual specimens in comparison with the photos?
The actual specimens are mostly pretty small, ranging from 6 mm to about 30 mm. Some of the larger printed photographs will be about a thousand times larger than the specimen!

Orchid Cuckoo Bee (Exaerete frontalis) from Brazil. Length: 26 mm
Orchid Cuckoo Bee (Exaerete frontalis) from Brazil. Length: 26 mm

What do you hope people will get out of the pictures in the exhibition?
To me insects are beautiful creatures and Levon has done an outstanding job of revealing this. I hope the photographs will spark people’s interest in insects and inspire more people to study them.

The photographs certainly pose some interesting questions, and reveal that there is so much we don’t know, particularly about the functions of all their strange and varied adaptations.

Is it valuable to showcase specimens from the collections in this way?
One of the most exciting parts of this exhibition for me was the opportunity to show part of the Museum’s collection which visitors don’t normally see.

The collection is used all the time by scientists, artists and educators, but unfortunately most of it is unsuitable for display because the specimens are so small. Levon’s ultra-high resolution photography has in a way solved this problem, allowing us to showcase some of these spectacular, but tiny and fragile creatures in all their beauty.