Bacteria Final

This steam project focused on photographing bioluminescent bacteria as they grew and died. To begin, we were given 8 petri dishes and asked to create a pattern or design that we would grow the bacteria in. When shown the pictures of bioluminescent bacteria my mind immediately jumped to space. I’ve always had a fascination with the beauty of space, and the appearance of the bacteria was strikingly similar to something that could’ve come from the Hubble Telescope. I picked the Ant Nebula, one of the most beautiful and dramatic celestial bodies to base my design off of. Besides the similarities in appearance, I was also drawn to the dichotomy of my design. The fact that microscopic bacteria can resemble something so large and far away was fascinating. Once the bacteria were placed on their respective petri dishes, we set them up in a dark room and took photographs, the exposures ranging from one to five minutes in the pitch-black room. My picture is a result of one of those exposures, edited to depict a purple glow to further the resemblance to a celestial body.