FILM DIARY

Our walk in Palm Grove, nearly proved fruitless for me. By the time I had set up to film a black-spotted semi-slug on the shell of a giant panda snail, the semi-slug had vanished. However, Lumart had shone his uv torch on lichens on a rough-hewn stone wall on either side of steps leading to the picnic area portending spectacular images. There are many rocks in the park, so I anticipated achieving good things filming lichens on them. But the results were poor. The lichens on the wall had been exposed to sunlight, those in the park were shielded by the understory and canopy.

On one side of the steps some of the lichens resembled larva flows and magma, others emitted a brilliant yellow light. On the other side of the steps, the lichens looked like rock paintings of a kind never achieved on earth, one with three bright white/green circles forming a triangle on a crimson ground. PS I went back to the wall next day and filmed the lichens in daylight. They looked very dull in comparison.