29/05/2026
This cyanotype image, titled Night Wanderer, was created by Zenobia Southcombe and features in the current In Our Backyard exhibition.
It is of an endemic leaf-veined slug, a group of slug species grouped under the name Pseudoneita. There are around 65 species of these rather flat-looking slugs in New Zealand, with other species found elsewhere in the southeast Pacific region. They can reach around five centimetres in length. They don’t feed on our garden plants, thankfully, instead feeding on fungi and algae growing in damp vegetated environments, including the quieter areas of local urban gardens. The slug’s appearance mimics a leaf with the central “vein” having small lines radiating from it to resemble the veining of a leaf on the forest floor.
This particular slug was photographed by Zenobia in her Palmerston garden in February this year. She has then used a Victorian photographic technique to produce the blue cyanotype print. Invented in 1842, the camera-less technique involves coating paper or fabric with light-sensitive iron salts, placing objects or negatives on top, and exposing it to sunlight before washing it in water. Here it has been employed using an original digital image to produce the same effect. There are a number of cyanotype images within the exhibition, all of which are for sale.
