Fingerprinting the Agar

The first experiment growing bacteria on the agar will be fingerprints as supposedly there is vast amount of microflora on the fingers and it will yield interesting results.  For this, I've decided to touch everything on my way to Cavendish today with my left hand and nothing with my right hand and then fingerprint both of my hands to see what happens... this should be interesting. 

This is my left hand that I touched everything with (train seats, poles, door handles, my shoe, the table, etc) and then what it looked like after I washed it with lab strength soap! 

Pouring Agar to Grow Bacteria

Today was an exciting and productive day in the ‘Bacteria World’.  I met at the lab technician at Westminster University - Cavendish campus and poured about 35-40 agar plates.  We poured two different types of agar, (one was called a neutral or LB agar and one is called macconkey's agar) to experiment with and see which one produces the best growth from finger print micro-flora and randomly swabbed objects. 

The agar was in a steamer (at 100°C) to bring it to a liquid state and then poured in a special box called a Laminar Flow Cabinet that blows clean air across it to help the agar stay clean while it’s poured and sets up so no unwanted and unknown bacteria grows on it.  Apparently agar is just a seaweed extract and yeast that acts like a super food for the bacteria to feed off and grow at a more rapid rate then it naturally would in the environment.  After it was poured it cooled in a few minutes and turned into a jelly like substance.  (I spilled it when I was pouring it but no one seemed to mind too much.)  After it cooled we stored in in a refrigerator that is 4°C (like a normal household one) and upside down so that if condensation formed it won’t drip water (that could be infected) onto the agar and ruin it.  Apparently, even while bacteria grows that is how it is stored for the same reason but while we timelapse it we will have to store it the other way to photograph the growth. 

Not an amazing result....

Scanned the film from the bacteria test on Friday and at first it doesn’t look like it worked but after looking closely at it tonight I’ve noticed that it seems to have started eating away at the film!!!  I’ve added the picture below with the part I think might be working enlarged.  Since the result is not as impressive as I was hoping for I am going to think about some other ideas to achieve a nice image using film and bacteria but keep working with this one in the mean time!  Let you know how it goes soon! 

Preparing to try out the 'Bacteria growing on film Experiment'

As with any science experiment there are trial runs to see if an idea can be executed!  So, I took some photos on 35mm Superia 200 film and put some bacteria on the film and see if it will grow directly on the film. I ended up using four petri dishes with eight negatives (so 2 in each dish) four negatives had some bacteria that was just beginning to grow applied and then two had some ‘bad’ orange fluffy bacteria streaked on and the other two had some ‘bad’ blue tiny dots of bacteria streaked on.  Not quite sure of the origin (type) of the bacteria at the moment since it came from stock supplies at the lab at the Cavendish campus of Westminster University but that it was most likely some type of e-coli (the workhorse of bacteria apparently).  All four petri dishes are being stored at 37° C and will be checked for growth and development on Monday (29/2/16 – Bonus Day).

 

 

 

 

Growing Bacteria on Film for Aesthetic Effect

Growing Bacteria on Film for Aesthetic Effect

So.... this is kind of a test plus something I'm working on!  It's for a class called Art & Science Collaboration, where as the name implies, we work with students from other disciplines to create something... anything really.  This is where my group and are heading at the moment (our inspiration if you will), the theme is Seen & Unseen - so bacteria seems acceptable.  Let you know how it goes!  

Sorry for the delay

I've been so busy!!!!  Went back the U.S for a few months and school is about to start again (University of Westminster) and I just finished moving flats!  I'm not really ready for another school year but I will give it my best as always and I'm sure I'm going to learn some amazing new techniques and information regarding my passion... PHOTOGRAPHY!  

Catch you up soon on my Motion Studies!  

Chronophotography

I've been looking at Chronophotography in my studies of motion analysis lately and have found it to be much more interesting then I initially thought it would be.  Chronophotography captures the movement of a subject in several frames but in the end displays it in one single image.  So, for example a person walking across a scene, the person would be displayed taking like 6 steps and it would look they are traveling across the image.  They are normally taken for the purpose of recording successive phases of motion of a moving object.  Surprisingly, this type of photography was invented back in 1867!  Isn't that crazy to think of?!  Much of the development of cinema has been linked to chronophotography and some of it's early pioneers such as Edweard Muybridge, Etienne- Jules Marey and George Demeny.  This type of photography can be accomplished using several methods from multiple exposures on the same slide to using image editing software or even with the use of a strobe light.  I am going to work on some examples of this soon (most likely digital to start)!  

Learning about motion

The past few days I have been studying motion and photography... I was not originally impressed by the subject, but I have to say I'm hooked now.  Did you know that photographers made strides towards motion picture back in the 1800's (1860) by exhibiting successive images to form the illusion of movement.  I think I'm going to look into the history more and work on some different images to depict movement....  

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So much to learn....

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When I first became interested in photography me attention was fleeting at best.  I liked to take photos and look at things differently then the people around me... like watching life from a lens.  I pursued it off and on and sometimes got paid a lot for my images and worked all over the world. That is where my dedication ended however, I made images that looked good when I felt like it.

Half my life later... (an interesting half but still a decade) I've decided to focus my intent on learning as much as I possibly can regarding photography, light, artists and everything in between.  Since starting my journey I have realized how truly far behind I am and that has been humbling and scary at the same time. I am going to try and share some of my journey here on this blog and to be honest I am not even totally sure how blogs work.  So I don't know if anyone will ever read this but even if not it will be interesting to look back and see how this all progresses.  If you ever want to chat feel free to drop me a line, I'm always happy to talk about photography, art or pretty much anything else.