Photographing the science museum
Photographer Meera Sethi has written a nice essay about taking photos in science museums. Sethi is part of Utata, a collective of photographers who met via Flickr. Indeed, be sure to check out Sethi's "Muse" science museum photo set on Flickr. (Seen here, "Together Forever," taken at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.) From "Photographing the Science Museum":
Is there anyone who doesn't feel a certain frisson of excitement when they see something organic preserved in a glass jar? I don't know exactly what it is, but I suspect it might have something to do with certain cultural associations we all carry around in our heads, some strange common currency that comes from years of watching mad scientist movies late at night.That might be me in there, I find myself thinking. If some other intellectually curious species with opposable thumbs and access to the secrets of chemistry had come to dominate the planet instead of my own, that might be my shriveled body all scrunched up in there—my brain at whose familiar whorls some creature with a purple exoskeleton would now be leering through the glass, wondering how on earth it could be so very...grey.Photographing the Science Museum (Utata, via Eastern Blot)
Mostly, though, what I love about standing in front of these heavy jars is how much easier they make it to observe the world I love so much, in close detail. Time pauses, temporarily. The barriers between me and the mysteries of this earth fall, temporarily. Nothing else matters except looking, and everything about the place where I am is designed to make it easier to look—and to see. I see that this barnacle has claws like a dragon's. I see that these spiders have legs like sharp needles. I see that this frog has approximately six times as many organs inside its torso as I would have thought it had room for. I try to look as much as I can, and when I have looked until I have seen, I take out my camera.
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I too am drawn to preserved things in jars, but I'm disappointed with the lack of those kinds of pics after the link jump.
Here's my effort-
http://tinyurl.com/5kkk67
My bad, I went to his blog. There are some shots in his flickr stream.
In Soviet Russia, science museum photographs you! - Yakov Smirnoff
"Is there anyone who doesn't feel a certain frisson of excitement when they see something organic preserved in a glass jar?"
I'm guessing by organic, Meera doesn't mean 'spicy kosher dill.'
Holy crap! Is that a sandking in a jar?!
And all the while on a shelf in the shed:
KENNY'S LITTLE CREATURES ON DISPLAY!
Ronnie saves his numies on a window in his room
(A marvel to be seen: dysentery green)
While Kenny & his buddies had a game out in the back:
LET'S MAKE THE WATER TURN BLACK
"We see them after school in a world of their own.
To some it might seem creepy what they do.
The neighbor on the right sat and watched them every night.
I'll bet you'd do the same if they was you."
Ok, Tak. That was the call. Here's my raise:
"It's hidden far away
But someday I may tell
The tale of metal tangle
When into your world I fell
Without you now I wander soaking
Secretly afraid
cause in your grasp the fears dont last
(and some of them have stayed)
I wheeled around because I
Didnt hear what you had said
And saw you dancing with Elihu
Up on Leemor's bed
And I was foggy rather groggy
You helped me to my car
The binding belt enclosing me
A sample in a jar..."
Ill send an s.o.s. to the world
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
Message in a bottle, yeah
"Laughter bloomed in the dark, right out of her mouth, an awful kind of laughter. She finished it, quick. 'It's just junk, Charlie! Rubber, papier-mache, silk, cotton, boric-acid! That's all! ' she shrilled. 'No, no!' He sat up swiftly, ripping sheets apart in big fingers, roaring. 'I don't wanna hear! Don't wanna hear!' he bellowed, over and over. She said, 'Wait'll everyone hears how fake it is! Won't they laugh! Won't they flap their lungs!"
Musha rain dum-a-doo dum-a-da, ha, ya
Whack for my daddy-o
Whack for my daddy-o
There's whiskey in the jar-o
Yeah, whiskey, yo, whiskey...
Oh-oh, ya
[W]herever I sat - on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok - I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.
and further;
And with every jar that hit the bar, we swore we would remain
And make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again.
Rise again, rise again, that her name not be lost
To the knowledge of men.
That night, after the last of the children had gone home, my wife and I sat outside drinking, each of us wrapped in a separate silence. The city lights were burning, and Joshua was sleeping in his room. A nightjar gave one long trill after another from somewhere above us.
"It's the middle of the night
And your mommy & your daddy are sleeping
It's the middle of the night
And your mommy & your daddy are sleeping
SLEEPING
MOM & DAD ARE SLEEPING
SLEEPING IN A JAR...
(The jar is under the bed)"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_1A8CBqIgc
"Ill be grazing by your window
Please come pat me on the head
I just want to find out what you're nice to me for
When I look up, don't think I don't know
About all the scabs you dread
Its hard to stomach the gore
I know you don't have the patience
To peel them off no more
In a jar where you believe
All I could do was lick your hand
In a jar the scars are plain to see
I hope somehow you'll know I understand
I'll be grazing by your window
Please come pat me on the head
I just want to find out what you're nice to me for
Then you smile and decide to take me in
cause I look you by your bed
But I can feel it just a little more
I'll watch you fall apart, babe you know it
You know I'm young and stuff, babe don't blow it
Just unscrew the top, yeah
Pick me up now just cant stop
In a jar where you believe
All I could do was lick your hand
In a jar where scars are plain to see
I hope somehow you'll know I understand
Scabs collect beneath your bureau
From the knife wounds you got"
http://images.allmoviephoto.com/2005_Jarhead/2005_jarhead_011.jpg
http://images.allmoviephoto.com/2005_Jarhead/2005_jarhead_011.jpg
nice dinosaur jr....
This post is really jarring our memory.
No jar-jar, please.
http://mytwocents.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/brain.jpg
Nice image Tak. I bid 26 quatlums!
Anthony: Agreed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvnCKJCgCD8
Mad scientists, muppets, and bottles FTW
The Muppet show could really fool with a kid's emotional responses to its material. Were you supposed to laugh or cry or what?
anyway:
http://images.artnet.com/artwork_images/3279028/125353t.jpg
Jim
I see all of your lyrics and raise you:
Neutral Milk Hotel - Two Headed Boy Pt. 2
Phikis-Excellent.
I made a wish on a sliver of moonlight
A sly grin and a bowl full of stars
Like a kid who captures a firefly
And leaves it only to die in the jar
Can I interrupt this orgy of lyrical recitation to point out the utter science-geeky coolness of the domain name easternblot.com?
For those unfamiliar, the Southern blot is a technique for detecting specific DNA sequences in a sample, developed by and named after Edwin Southern. From this, in a terribly wonderful display of geekish wordplay, the northern and western blots for RNA and protein, respectively were developed, and see routine use in laboratories to this day.
There is, to date, no eastern blot...
But on the topic of songs, I'm afraid the only appropriate response I can come up with is this:
I can't believe
That you're gone and we're alone
I can't believe
That we'll never see your face
I can't believe
That you're at the gates of Heaven
I can't believe
That we'll never know you
If only, if only
Miracles happened every day
If only, if only
I could believe in something
Helpless we cried over you
Empty and lost over you
How in the world
Can they say that you're at peace?
How in the world
Can they say that time will heal us?
How in the world
Can we hope to be forgiven?
How in the world
Can we know how we feel?
If only, if only
We could all live forever
If only, if only
No memories to remember
Words were not spoken for you
No grave marks our love for you
Broken our hearts call for you
No-one can blame us but you
How in the world can we ever smile again?
How in the world can we live without you?
(Little InVitro by Gary Numan, written about his wife's miscarriage.)
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
There's a bug in that jar...
..and 'e looks just like you!
I found the brains of Santa Claus
Underneath my bed
They were in a pickle jar
I wonder if he's dead
Oh, the smell like dried up tuna
And look more grey than red
I found the brains of Santa Claus
I'll bet you that he's dead
strangeblot?
No, not everything reminds me of the late Stephen Jay Gould.
However, 20+ years ago Gould collaborated with photographer Rosamond Wolff Purcell, and produced Illuminations: A Bestiary which is a wonderful book of photographs from museum collections.