Following on from the posting below, today I've been photographing this fossil crab.

It's found locally and in other parts of New Zealand too, such as North Canterbury.

I started on this project in the late 90's when I was artist-in-residence at Canterbury University. Their museum has a good collection of these in storage to which I was given ready access. I went on a couple of personal fossil hunts in the field too, no results unfortunately.

I've been keeping my eyes open during all the 6 years I've been in Taranaki. Again no results. These crabs appear inside oval rocks that look exactly like thousands of other oval rocks!

Recently a kind New Plymouth resident gave me one as a present. I've had a couple of tries at finding a photograph in it. I'll just keep playing with it, I may be being led to other pastures. Sometimes I have to photograph something in order to see what it looks like photographed.

I also wanted to see what the difference was between a colour version and a black and white one.

Meanwhile, below is a photo from about 4 years ago.