Photographer Grows Organic Photos From Algae

Last week we shared a story about a photographer that employs a pretty unique process to her film. (Spoiler alert: she pees on them.) Now we meet a french photographer that uses an even more eclectic method to create his images. Rather than using chemicals and paper or a digital darkroom, Lia Giraud grows his photos using light sensitive micro-organisms as part of his Cultures project.

Using a process he dubs algae-graphy, Giraurd places petri dishes that have micro-algae and a chemical nutrient base on them into a wooden box which he uses to “expose” the images. To do this, he projects a picture onto the dishes and, over the course of four days, the cells react to the light and form the image.

Here is what his setup looks like:

“They are created by micro-organisms able to capture the light and “develop” pictures on a similar principle to classic photography. Upsetting the definition of “still image” usually given photography, the algae-graphs are mobile, autonomous, organic …”

[ Lia Giraurd via Make ]