Joel Penner

Last year I experimented with shots of red wigglers eating larger items of produce. I hadn’t really tried this before and was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the animation!

A truly stunning aspect of this shot was how some of the worms stayed visible for *days*! Seriously - I’ve usually done one shot every 15 minutes to give them time in the dark in order to draw them out, but here even one shot a minute didn’t phase them!

Usually they avoid light so as to not dry out, but I guess the draw of the papaya was too powerful for these adventurous few! 😂

Afterwards I put another fruit on top of the compost to capture some ambient worm action. I find the frenetic quality of that activity so tantalizing! 🪱

As people often ask - this shot took place over two and a half months! 😀