Jayne Hajnoczky’s photos of Canadian plants and insects are in the first section of National Geographic’s January 2024 issue.
The Calgary visual artist collects items from all across Canada and uses a high-definition scanner to record them over a black background, something that caught the eye of an editor with the magazine.
Now, Hajnoczky is receiving praise from all over the globe.
“People that I know casually online are sending messages and getting in touch,” she said.
“People from all over the world are like, ‘I’m overwhelmed by your photography, this is so beautiful,’ so it’s nice to get all the feedback and hear that what I’m trying to do with the pictures is actually coming through.”
Hajnoczky started using the photography technique in 2015 after experimenting with items placed on a scanner.
“The first image that really got me going on this project was I put down this little island of lichen and this little dried flower,” she said.
“When the scan came up, it was like, ‘Oh, this is a little world floating in space,’ and so that has been sort of the vision that all of these have followed from.”
Gary Lorimer is Hajnoczky’s life partner and heads out with her on various photography adventures that can last for months. He says he’s amazed at what she’s able to capture.
“Watching her actually build the art from the hike we just finished, seeing what she collected to actually watching the process being built, then seeing it flash up on the screen, it’s amazing! I don’t have any kind of an artistic bone in my body so watching her do her art is just amazing.”
A post shared by Julya Hajnoczky (@obscuralucida)
Hajnoczky has a small travel trailer that she lives in while on the road.
It’s where she has her studio set up to scan items she finds.
Lorimer says Hajnoczky’s dedication to her work is likely what prompted her to be featured in National Geographic.
“Watching her grow over the last three or four years of this project and seeing to what it is now, being in National Geographic and getting recognition, is just amazing to see it go from start to finish,” he said.
The high-definition scanner is able to capture incredible detail of the images.
Hajnoczky places a black tent over the scanner so the items appear to be floating in space, but says the awe factor comes from zooming into the pictures.
“One of my favorite parts of the process is as soon as that high-res scan comes in, is to zoom and zoom and zoom,” she said.
“Because you can see just these incredible details of things like these plants, they’re covered in hair and just all kinds of stuff, it’s really fascinating.”
Hajnoczky says she’s no scientist, but enjoys botany and biology.
She’s regularly researching the areas she’s visiting to discover what grows there that might not be seen anywhere else.
“I do spend a lot of time just very slowly wandering around, getting down there with my phone or a hand lens to take a closer look at things,” she said.
“Then there’s going back to the field guides and trying to identify what I’ve seen, so it’s a bigger process than just going out and picking flowers.”
A post shared by Julya Hajnoczky (@obscuralucida)
The prints of Hajnoczky’s finished images are much larger than what can be seen in National Geographic.
She’s worked with Costas Costoulas, the owner of Resolve Photo, for a decade to print her pictures, which reach close to two metres high.
Costoulas says he’s excited for his client’s success on the world stage.
“I’m pretty stoked about that, that’s a first for us here at Resolve,” he said. “It’s great! I’ve been working with Julya for probably 10 years and to see this kind of success coming her way is fantastic, we’re really pleased.”
A post shared by Julya Hajnoczky (@obscuralucida)
Hajnoczky says she’ll continue to use a scanner to capture the Canadian ecosystem and would like to visit the arctic on her next adventure.
“I honestly feel like I’m just getting started, like I could do this forever,” she said.
“There’s so much out there to see that you can go back to the same place at different seasons, different years, different conditions and you’ll always find something different, so you could even just do this in one place forever to be honest.”
To learn more about Hajnoczky’s work, you can visit her website.
