Opalescent Nudibranch - Acrylic Print
The first piece in a series I am calling “Suspended Silhouettes”.
Blackwater photography as it is often called, is my style of choice for celebrating local marine life.
Acrylic prints are light, durable, easy to keep clean, and require no frame. Prints are mounted using aluminum french cleats, creating an effect that makes your print appear as if it were suspended off of the wall.
This piece is 12”x18” and presented on ⅛” acrylic.
All mounting materials (Cleats, screws, & drywall anchors) are included. All artwork is designed, printed, and cut in Campbell River, B.C.
More information about the animal featured can be found below.
Nudibranchs are a group of animals that are closely related to slugs, snails, limpets, and chitons. They are unique in both their physiology and their appearance; not only do they lack a shell and have extremely fragile bodies, they are more brightly coloured than any other sea creature in our region. Instead of armouring themselves, nudibranchs display bright colours to warn predators to keep clear. The frilly cerata on their backs are pumped full of toxins and terrible tasting chemicals that most animals find intolerable.
This photo was taken during one of my many visits to Island View Beach in Central Saanich on October 15th, 2017. Just off shore there is a massive expanse of eelgrass which is home to thousands of tiny creatures, many of them nudibranchs. When the currents pick up, some nudibranchs will cast themselves off into the water column, either to evade potential threats, seek out food, or find more of their kind. In this photo, we see the Opalescent nudibranch from below. We can see the cerata behind it, its two rhinophores (scent detecting organs) sticking out above, it’s oral tentacles coming towards us, and the ‘foot’ that the nudibranch sticks to the seafloor below. This individual was no more than one inch long.