Galena resident, Richard Pearce, has just launched a new website that catalogues high-resolution photoscans of wild plants from the region. Not to be confused with photographs, these images are scanned in the field or in the studio using a normal office ‘scanner’, a laptop, a light source and a power pack. Richard can capture images of wild plants with amazing clarity and resolution with this setup. High end cameras are grabbing 8-20 mega pixels and lack the up close detail. With a scanner he is achieving 50-100 mega pixels with incredible details up close. This allows you to see plant details not able to be seen with the naked eye. This artform was the subject of an exhibit at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville in 2006 featuring Richard’s mural sized images.
Richard accidentally stumbled upon the process in 2001. He said of the discovery, ” What I saw that night with the office scanner clearly went beyond macro-photography and into the realm of microscopy.” Since then he has successfully scanned over 200 species and a few insects within the Tri-State region, including some threatened and endangered plants. Currently the website contains 69 species with more images added every week.
Along with the incredible photoscans of individual plants on the new website. Each species has a description based on personal research, a plant distribution map, a satellite image of the general location where the plant was scanned and its exact GPS coordinates. The site will be constantly evolving as time goes on and Richard does not expect to become bored with this hobby as the plant diversity in the area and advances in scanner technology could keep him busy for a lifetime.
The new website is called the Upper Mississippi Wildflower Series. Richard welcomes critical feedback from web viewers.
http://www.arrasimages.com/UMW.html View the website here
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