Let Your Eyes Adjust
August 4, 2016
In this modern world of insane digital sensors and ground-breaking microscopes, we often take our eyes’ light-sensing abilities for granted. I love the way that photography can be used as a tool to see or express things that cannot be seen by the naked eye. But when we give our eyes the chance to accommodate to darkness, they seem to have endless depth for light sensing.
Take, for example, an amazing phenomenon here in Bellingham, Wash. Every summer, a bloom of bioluminescent phytoplankton surges the beaches and bays in town—but you might never notice. These microscopic lifeforms can’t be seen during the day; yet, at night, one can adapt their own eyes to be able to eke out their distress signals—in the form of bioluminescence.
Throw a rock, splash around in the brisk Pacific waters of the Puget Sound, and you’ll disturb these little creatures enough to initiate their predator-defense mechanism. Beautiful light beams from the water, dots the rocks and strings like christmas ornaments through beached seaweed. Ripples on the surface become mystifying galaxies of light.
Though you can’t perceive their physical bodies, you can sense their presence. And here lies the challenge, the fun: using photography to express what this experience is like. I had some hurdles to jump through. Operating a camera while trying to avoid ruining my night sight proved difficult. Also, I wasn’t alone on the beach; others drawn to the ocean light display partied on the nearby beach… tending campfires and even a spell of fire spinning—as if the light pollution of the surrounding cities and cross-water residences wasn’t enough.
Navigating slippery rocks in the pitch black of Teddy Bear Cove, I threw rocks to trigger the phytoplankton response in front of my open sensor to create an approximation of the experience of this phenomenon. I explored the depth of my camera’s sensitivity, boosting ISO even to 10,000 and toying with a variety of exposure lengths. Photography is a terrific medium to share experiences. In this case, it helped me document something that, otherwise, you would have to see firsthand in order to believe.
