An exhibit titled “Wakaya Octocorals and Giants” is on display in Exley Science Center. The 22 photographs in the display were taken by Joshua Boger ’73, P’06, P’09 and feature reefs off Wakaya Island in Fiji. Boger has dived these reefs more than 200 times, spending more than a week underwater. Pictured is a royal purple soft coral — Alcyonacea — photographed in 2013.
Boger uses a Canon 7D SLR in a water proof housing to capture two different sea animals: giant clams and octocorals. The photographs are inkjet printed onto metallic photo paper, front-mounted to acrylic and back mounted to dibond aluminum.The giant clams are the largest living bivalve mollusks, and are highly endangered. Each clam can weigh more than 400 pounds and can live for more than 100 years. Pictured is Boger’s “Mantle of Blue-Dotted Brown Giant Clam” photographed in 2014.Alcyonacea or “soft corals” are members of the subclass Octocorallia and are sometimes called “octocorals” because each of the tiny coral polyps, used for feeding, has eight “arms.” These animals have gelatinous bodies supporting thousands of polyps. Pictured is “Red and White Soft Coral” photographed in 2013.“Clams Montage 2” features the species Tridacna gigas and Tridacna derasa, photographed in 2010-2014.Fiji is located 1,500 miles from the nearest continent. “In this environment, there is beauty that challenges our dystopian assumptions. This polychromatic fractal beauty is heron celebrated,” Boger wrote in his exhibit statement. “Enjoy. It’s our only planet.”
Olivia Drake
James Sims
Editorial Staff
Ziba Kashef