Peter Shellenberger, B & W Firefly, 1/10, 2019, Color digital prints, 24 x 30 inches

I have been catching fireflies and having them expose sheets of film for the past six years. During the summer I decided to let the yard go wild, allowing for fireflies to establish themselves. After just a couple years there are now thousands of fireflies during their mating cycle. When this cycle begins, I use two or three sheets of film and gather fireflies for only a couple nights, trying not to upset them. When the nights work is finished I put them back in the yard in the morning. Unfortunately some fireflies have been killed in the making of these images but that is mostly because of a predator firefly that eats the others. Wherever you see purple along with the firefly light that is radioactivity, combining two independent energy sources in a single image.  -P.S.

Peter Shellenberger is an artist and photographer living and working in Edgecomb, Maine. Peter’s work was recently on view in Seeing What Isn’t There at All Street Gallery in New York. Photographs and films by Shellenberger have been featured in exhibitions at the ICA-MECA&D, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Space, Concord Art, University of Vermont, University of Southern Maine, and Zero Station. His photographs are in private collections as well as the Judy Glickman Lauder Collection at the Portland Museum of Art.