Tag Archives: 254

Glowing Nepenthes: “Sabre” and “Song of Melancholy”

Carnivorous plants are badass. Beauty, seduction (um, yeah that’s a NSFW link), devious trapping prowess… acoustic echo location skills, and even glow in the dark skills just to name a few – they never cease to amaze. Heck, carnivorous plant skills even rival THIS DUDE’S impressive list of skills. Anyway, ever since I saw this in Nat Geo, I’ve been inspired to shoot around with these plants in 254nm UV light.

You can see some of my other posts here: Nepenthes: In Different Light, Red Queen Glows Blue, Nepenthes robcantleyi in UV Light.

Recently, the amazing Paul Barden sent over a few more beautiful botanical gems (THANK YOU PAUL!!) and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity of putting them under some black light and getting a long exposure going. Now, this isn’t your typical black light I’m using. These photos are shot using a specific 254nm wavelength UV light as I’ve referenced in my other posts above.

Check these beauties out! You can mouse over the image to see them in natural light. 🙂

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Nepenthes “Sabre” under 254nm UV Light.
144 second exposure, f 5.0, 50mm. Mouse over to see the plant in normal light.


Nepenthes “Sabre” under 254nm UV Light.
116 second exposure, f 5.0, 50mm. Mouse over to see the plant in normal light.


Nepenthes “Song of Melancholy under 254nm UV Light.
24 second exposure, f 6.3, 50mm. Mouse over to see the plant in normal light.

The Red Queen Glows Blue

New Nepenthes

Recently my fellow carnie-homie Kinjie Coe contacted me saying that he was sending some stuff my way. Shoot – I was surprised to come home to not one, but *two* boxes full of some very rad Nepenthes. (Dude!! Thanks so much, Kinjie!) One of the plants that he sent my was a Nepenthes tiveyi “Red Queen” – such an amazing beauty. Since I was at home and it had a nice pitcher attached to it, I decided to photograph her majesty – in regular light AND short wave UV light. Check out this post for some more photos Nepenthes under short wave 254nm UV light, as well as this Vine video. By the way, for those asking, *yes* I’ve tried Sarracenia under the light, but there really wasn’t much “glow” to those babies. I haven’t had time for a proper UV light shoot at the greenhouse (I actually shot the Nepenthes in my bathroom), but will still try to shoot the lack of glowing from Sarracenia sooner or later. Perhaps I need another lamp to make the Sarracenia glow blue, but I don’t feel compelled to drop a few hundred for a new UV lamp at the moment. Anyway, I captured the below photos using a long exposure – 30 seconds at f2.8, 50 mm. Mouse over the photo to see the photo under regular light.

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Nepenthes tiveyi “Red Queen”


Nepenthes tiveyi “Red Queen”

Nepenthes tiveyi “Red Queen”