Microplastic Gothic: Harnessing Visual Stories to Reveal Anthropogenic Spectres

My PhD Timeline

Microplastic begins as fossil fuels. This enhydro petroleum quartz crystal was photographed under a microscope, revealing a hidden world: Microplastic Gothic.

Enhydro petroleum quartz crystal photographed with a macro lens. UV lights make the petroleum glow. Do you see the creature?

Fossil fuels are the remains long dead of plants and animals (algae, phytoplankton and zooplankton), which lived in ancient seas, millions of years ago. As these plants and creatures died and settled on the ocean floor, they were buried...and through geological processes, they became the non-renewable fossil fuels that humans now depend on. This microscopic image shows living descendants that haven't changed in millions of years. They live in my salt water aquarium.

Microplastics begin here.

This microscopic photograph reveals petroleum trapped inside a Petroleum Enhydro quartz crystal. 

I needed to photograph fossil fuels that rest in the earth, before extraction. My research led me to these crystals. As I studied them, eerie creatures appeared  within the petroleum quartz, suspended over millions of years. They become a metaphor for fossil fuels that remain within their resting place until humans extract them--and the anthropogenic spectres are released. 

Microplastic Gothic narratives confront the Anthropogenic Anxieties haunting us...  Who is that...?

Photo taken with my microscope

Petroleum Enhydros provide Gothically visual narratives... igniting imaginations.

Photograph taken through a microscope.

Here are some of the Petroleum Enhydro Quartz crystals I have been photographing for my project. I am using a macro lens and microscope to get the extreme closeup photographs. My camera is a Nikon Z6.

Near the tip of this Petroleum Hydro Quartz crystal has a small glowing spectre--glowing yellow under UV light indicates that it is petroleum. 

UV light created the yellowish glow surrounding this spectre, trapped within the quartz. If you revisit the image with the ruler and Petroleum Enhydro Quartz crystals, this is the crystal at the bottom, right. 

Another enhydro petroleum quartz crystal photographed microscopically. The creature is suspended, waiting to be released...

As I explore enhydro quartz crystals, I discover strange and eerie shapes--

My Gothic story will visually describe microplastic pollution, from their origin--as they are created from fossil fuels... The enhydro quartz crystals trapped petroleum--and within the structures, strange mysterious spectres seem suspended, waiting to be released

Here there be dragons...

Another enhydro petroleum quartz crystal photographed microscopically. They are waiting...