The researcher was kind enough to ship Varma the crickets, so that he could get the shot he needed, at his own pace.īut to produce each of the shots in “Mindsuckers,” Varma did not only have to capture the decisive moment, he had to convey his subjects in a compelling way. Eventually, Varma had to leave the lab and return home. For three or four weeks, Varma had to deal with dying crickets, slow-developing worms, moments that were Of course, to capture that image was not simple-in fact, it was the hardest to capture of any in the series. A moment after and it’s impossible to believe that a worm that long actually came out of a simple cricket. A moment before and the worm is still inside the cricket, invisible.

Varma realized that the purpose of his photographs was not to illustrate the parasite’s whole existence but to find the one frame where the parasite’s relationship with its host was at its most dramatic.įor example, in trying to capture the horsehair worm coming out of the cricket -there is only one instant when the action is most clear.

In developing the visual approach for his series, Varma was faced with another difficulty: parasites operate in life cycles, while photography is best at capturing a single moment. Unless you study them, you probably think they’re gross and you don’t want to hear about them, let alone look at them.” Thus, Varma’s challenge became how to capture his subject in such a way that would engage people who wouldn’t otherwise be interested. As Varma realized, “No one wants to know about parasites. But Varma’s feeling of connection with these creatures was not widely shared. The idea for “Mindsuckers” first came when Varma encountered some fascinating parasitic creatures as a biology student. As he soon discovered, photography was just as good a way to explore the world as science-and perhaps an even better way to communicate those discoveries with the general public. But after a chance job as a photography assistant turned out to be a lot more fun than research, Varma was hooked. He actually came to photography from a background in biology.

He never owned a film camera, he never had the desire or a plan to become a professional. Anand Varma did not have a conventional upbringing in photography.

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