Gallery: How to capture a bioluminescent cave worm at its best Gallery Gallery: How to capture a bioluminescent cave worm at its best + 15

+ 14

+ 13

New Zealand's 30-million-year-old limestone caves, with their walls lined with mesmerising bioluminescent glow worms, are a photographer's dream. This is far from the first time Arachnocampa luminosa have been captured on film, but Auckland photographer Joseph Michael's latest series on them, Luminosity, demonstrates the lengths people will still go to to share this natural wonder with the rest of us: hours stood in the dank, freezing waters, over a period of months, hoping the next long exposure shot will manage to snare the experience of standing amongst these hypnotic, blinking night lights.

At least one of the shots, taken on the North Island, does that for Michael. "01 is pretty interesting," he tells WIRED.co.uk. "I've never had it before, but I get this weird sense of déjà vu when I stare at it. Perhaps this image will become my most famous, I'm not sure. Either way all the Luminosity images look pretty cool upside down, you should give that a try. It gives a totally different perspective. That's all I'm looking for with my art or photographs. To give someone the opportunity to look at something different, create a deeper perspective on the things we see every day."


Joseph Michael

Beyond this series, Michael's also hoping to achieve this with a new exhibit repurposing photos he took during a 2015 expedition to Antarctica. He and a wider team created a photographic map of the icebergs and plan to project these images onto iconic buildings across the globe during 2016. The project draws together composers and technicians and Michael is no stranger to cinematic-style collaborations, having worked as an assistant on Peter Jackson's motion capture team for The Hobbit, and on a solo project creating 3D timelapses of the epic New Zealand landscape.

Read next London’s National Gallery was hit by the biggest art heist in history London’s National Gallery was hit by the biggest art heist in history

We caught up with Michael to talk about Luminosity, tech and capturing an icy continent for the world to see.

When were the Luminosity photos taken?

Over the last few months -- I needed a break from the projection mapping project I'm doing on Antarctica. I've been wanting to do a project on bioluminescence for some time now so it was nice to immerse myself (literally) in the caves.


Is there an optimal time to catch the glow worms on camera?

It varies -- you can see the glow worms all year round in New Zealand. In summer there tends to be more (sometimes up to 30 percent more) but in winter they tend to glow brighter.

What equipment did you use?

I used the Nikon D810, which I find to be the best camera for high resolution night photography, and a mixture of different lenses -- 14-24mm f2.8, 24mm f1,4, 35mm f1.4 and the 105mm macro f2.8. To light the caves I used a household LED lamp which I could calibrate to any colour.

How exactly did you capture the shots?

The processing involved finding caves with an abundance of glow worms/interesting cave formations and then standing in cold water for hours on end to capture them. There was a bit of experimentation getting the settings right on the camera. I like the look of the caves when there is more depth of field but that's difficult in such a dark environment.


Tech is always at the heart of your work -- what new approaches are you working on?

I'm pretty excited about the possibilities of the tools I get to use as a photographer these days. I think over the next few years we're going to see some insane developments in low light capabilities. Hopefully the popularity of this series will convince Nikon to let me have a play with some of the new cameras they've been telling me about...

What else are you working on now?

[Luminosity] was initially undertaken to take my mind off a larger project I'm currently working on which involves projection mapping icebergs onto significant buildings around the globe. I'm keen to expand this series into a multi media exhibition, which will involve time-lapse and slow-motion and other forms of bioluminescence. Giving people the chance to experience the incredible things that occur naturally on this planet. The project on Antarctic icebergs is fairly consuming. It's like putting together a feature film. Next year I'll be projection mapping an entire building to look like a huge video iceberg. After that we'll take the show to ten cities internationally.

joemichael.co.nz