documentation for collection

All samples were scanned at 360dpi at 8X10 inches.
I collected a variety of samples including various human, dog, cat, and bird hair.


Initially I was excited about the idea of collecting something so symbolic as hair and did not know what would come of it. In the process I learned how protective some people are with their hair and how much of outward indentity is defined by how we wear our hair. Many people asked what I was gonna do with their samples infering that I was up tp something sinister. The magical implications of having someone's hair is that you can cast spells over them with greater ease. I was surprised how many "normal" people were superstitious about this idea. When I did some digging on drug testing using hair i learned that it is pretty specific and dyes and bleaches do not affect the test, it apparently works better from the nap of the neck and with some folical attached. Still pretty amazing that an individuals substance history can be pretty accuratly determined by testing of the hair.Not to mention that our gentic code is embedded in our hair shaft.
I was thinking about hair as essence and that gave me the idea to present the samples in small jars , referencing Egyptian Canopic Jars as well as medical specimans. The idea to show the highly magnified scans larger seemed to be an obvious way to create a visual dynamic questioning size relationships.
I started to branch out and collect other hair like specimans bird feathers for example cause I liked the similarity that these adornments were quite similar to our hair _if only our hair let us fly. The visual similarities of seeing these different samples scanned and magnified was exciting to my geek side. love microphotography.
finally I realized that there are so many layers of information that exist in the world and in substances ther is an endless availabilty of visual and intellectual scapes to explore.