Mermaid's Purse.

Strolling along the beach after a couple of days of high winds, I came across this. Over here we call it a Mermaid's Purse. Actually it is of course the egg case of a dog fish. I'm not sue which dog fish mind you as it is quite a large one. According to my fishing mad son, the smaller ones are those of the lesser spotted type, so perhaps this example, which is at least three times larger, might be thet of a greater doggie. Related to the shark, the doggies, apparently leave these in the water and the young eventually eat their way out. It's not uncommon to find the old cases on the beach.
To shoot this, I suspended it on a length of cotton and placed it dangling in front of a white bed sheet which was slung over one of the dining room chairs. Lighting was by two angle poise lamps and the lens was simply the standard zoom lens without any close up attachments. The biggest and unforseen problem was the fact that the whole kit tended to rotate slowly and it was almost impossible to keep it steady. Wonderful what can be achieved with bits of masking tape though! Post processing involved the whitening of the entire background by a devious method involving adjustment layers, regular style levels adjustments and the cloning out of the thread by which it was suspended.
An egg case it may be, but I prefer to call it A Mermaid's Purse. Much more romantic!