Description
ALIEN #19 – Baby jacks using a jellyfish (Aequorea neocyanea) as shelter. Jellyfish bell ~5cm diameter.
Sometimes the safest place in the ocean is literally inside the most dangerous place in the ocean! Like the Millennium Falcon pressed up against the bridge of a Star Destroyer, (if you don’t get that analogy, we probably can’t be friends) these baby jacks have found shelter in a very harsh world….so long as they stay nimble and avoid the stingy-bits. After all, who would be crazy enough to go in and try to eat them there? It’s pretty genius, really. The jacks (species unknown without DNA) aren’t completely immune to the sting. They likely have some resistance through their body mucus, but early on in shooting the Aliens collection, I realized my bright lights were disorienting the behbeh jacks, causing them to either flee their shelter, or occasionally get stuck in the tentacles and eaten by the jellyfish. And you might think, oh, who cares, it’s just one little jack – my redneck brother-in-law fishes for them all the time and likes to watch them squirm. Okay, fine, he’s awesome, but it’s my ethical responsibility as a wildlife photographer to change as little as possible, and I strive for that in everything I do. So I developed a system where, as soon as I locate a jelly full of jacks, I immediately turn my lights away. I get prepared for a shot, then quickly move in and take 2 quick photos (or ~2-3 seconds of video), and then back away and go searching for other Aliens. Using that technique seems to keep the relationship in place, and nobody gets hurt. If you’ve seen my video clips of this, you’re thinking, hey, that’s longer than 3 seconds!?! But do your videography math, and remember that filming at >120p = at least 1/4 playback speed at <30fps.
For printing, we offer the Aliens as squares on either aluminum or canvas, but they are customizable into other shapes if your design plan requires it. You can purchase this luxury wall art online in standard sizes, but if you’d like to discuss a custom crop or size, please contact one of our design consultants at the art gallery. Perhaps our most popular arrangement for Aliens is a grouping of three of our 15″ x 15″ aluminums, but I encourage you to discuss the size & shape of your project’s wall with one of our design consultants, who will help you develop an amazing contemporary art installation that blurs the lines between natural beauty and scientific fascination. Alien 19 is available up to a maximum size of 96″.