Ascaris lumbricoides. Archival Pigment Print from Dry Plate Gelatin Ferrotype. 2013. Marcus DeSieno
Ascaris lumbricoides. Archival Pigment Print from Dry Plate Gelatin Ferrotype. 2013.
Baylisascaris procyonis. Archival Pigment Print from Dry Plate Gelatin Ferrotype.2013. Marcus DeSieno
Baylisascaris procyonis. Archival Pigment Print from Dry Plate Gelatin Ferrotype.2013.
Cimex lectularius. Archival Pigment Print from Dry Plate Gelatin Ferrotype. 2013. Marcus DeSieno
Cimex lectularius. Archival Pigment Print from Dry Plate Gelatin Ferrotype. 2013.
Dermacentor andersoni. Archival Pigment Print from Dry Plate Gelatin Ferrotype. 2013. Marcus DeSieno
Dermacentor andersoni. Archival Pigment Print from Dry Plate Gelatin Ferrotype. 2013.
Fasciola hepatica. Archival Pigment Print from Dry Plate Gelatin Ferrotype. 2013. Marcus DeSieno
Fasciola hepatica. Archival Pigment Print from Dry Plate Gelatin Ferrotype. 2013.
Hirudo medicinalis. Archival Pigment Print from Dry Plate Gelatin Ferrotype. 2013. Marcus DeSieno
Hirudo medicinalis. Archival Pigment Print from Dry Plate Gelatin Ferrotype. 2013.
Ixodes scapulars. Archival Pigment Print from Dry Plate Gelatin Ferrotype. 2013. Marcus DeSieno
Ixodes scapulars. Archival Pigment Print from Dry Plate Gelatin Ferrotype. 2013.
Pulex irritans. Archival Pigment Print from Dry Plate Gelatin Ferrotype. 2014. Marcus DeSieno
Pulex irritans. Archival Pigment Print from Dry Plate Gelatin Ferrotype. 2014.
Schistosoma mansoni (male). Archival Pigment Print from Dry Plate Gelatin Ferrotype. 2014. Photo: Marcus DeSieno
Schistosoma mansoni (male). Archival Pigment Print from Dry Plate Gelatin Ferrotype. 2014.
Photo: Marcus DeSieno
Taenia solium. Archival Pigment Print from Dry Plate Gelatin Ferrotype. 2014. Marcus DeSieno
Taenia solium. Archival Pigment Print from Dry Plate Gelatin Ferrotype. 2014.
As a kid, Marcus DeSieno possessed two conflicting qualities: He was a nerd drawn to the natural world, yet “anxious as hell.”
In many ways, he found nature terrifying: After watching Alien at age five, he started obsessively washing his hands because he feared being infected by a parasite, and he avoided certain foods because he feared they’d cause a tapeworm. Still, he loved collecting and indexing bugs, rocks, and fossils.
It’s only natural that he would be drawn to photography, a medium long used to catalog the world around us. And like many before him, DeSieno has followed his curiosity and passion into some truly bizarre places. He’s gotten a prostate biopsy just for the sample tissue. He’s grown bacteria in the trunk of his car. And, about 18 months ago, he started amassing an impressive collection of parasites to photograph.
At first, DeSieno bought them from Etsy and eBay (where there is a thriving “Cabinet of Curiosities” community). Later, as a grad student in the University of South Florida’s studio art program, he started receiving specimens from the National Institute of Health, as well as access to the university’s microscopy lab.
But rather than produce exceedingly sharp images with the methods scientists use to conduct cancer research, DeSieno intentionally makes scientifically dubious, imprecise photographs, ultimately relying on 19th century processes. The goal, he said, is to “subvert the notion of scientific authority by pointing to my role as an amateur.”
At the microscopy lab, DeSieno dehydrates each organism in a chemical bath, them puts it through a scanning electron microscope to create a “really nice dimensional, textural image.” After working with the digital image in Photoshop, he prints a digital positive and exposes it onto dry plate gelatin ferrotype plates. His final images are prints rendered a sickly shade of yellow (“Reminiscent of bodily fluids, puss and vomit.”) using a formula concocted for his developer, fixer, and gelatin. Then he blows them up to 1:1 scale, the better to horrify viewers.
The result is scary, messy and utterly human. Each time he pours chemicals on a plate, it comes out differently, the swirls and patterns part of a language he can’t duplicate. Each image also bears a unique marker: At the edge of each frame, you’ll spot DeSieno’s fingerprint etched into the emulsion.
From a scientific perspective, DeSieno’s images aren’t terribly useful. Precision is not the point. His goal is aesthetic, not informational. Still, he hopes the images instill in viewers a curiosity about science, an interest in “the larger world of which they’re a part.” DeSieno, for his part, has come to find parasites “incredibly endearing,” even “kind of cute.” But just as his childhood curiosity remains with him, so, to does the occasional unease.
“I’d like to stay I’ve gotten over the paranoia, but just last week I was photographing a guinea worm. As I was pulling it out, it wrapped around my wrist and I started freaking out,” he said. “So there may be some lingering anxiety.”
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