Christmas Light Filaments

These are the glowing hot filaments inside of an incandescent mini Christmas light. These are typically made of tungsten. I haven't figured out how to get a good shot of one of our LED Christmas lights yet.

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PureVia, Purple Sugar, and Demerara Sugar

We've already seen several sugar substitutes up close. Above is PureVia, a newer one derived from the zero-calorie sweetener rebaudioside A (rebiana). More lumpy crystals that look white at normal size.

Below is a photo of good ol' regular sugar crystals-- purple ones! These are for cookie and cake decorating. The girls used bales of this stuff for decorating our holiday treats.

Further down is a shot of demerera sugar. In this photo, the sugar crystals look like the giant stones of a sunken Atlantis roadway. I am surprised how un-sugar-like they look, rounded corners and all. I wonder if it is due to the natural impurities present in this type of unprocessed sugar.

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Art Installation at String Theory

Here are a few photos of the large (60"x90") pieces I've installed in the offices of New York design boutique, String Theory. Studio owner, John, chose two of my ice bubble images, one of which has been published here at Morning Macro, to hang on his walls.

Thanks to John Vondracek for the photos, he is the owner of these images and I am stealing them for my use. You, however, may not also steal them for your use.

Cranberry Skins

Here are the skins of cranberries Sarah strained from the mix while making cranberry curd for a Thanksgiving tart. I like how they look like cellophane or vinyl. I've done nothing to these photos except minor adjustments for the color of the light from my flash and any variance in their exposure. These skins were shot on a piece of plexiglass with the light coming from below at the side, in order to highlight their translucent character.

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Sweet & Low, Equal, Splenda, and Sugar

Sweet & Low crystals.

I've been complaining about the shortage of sugar at the office, which I use in my coffee and oatmeal in the morning. And I've been forced by this situation to use sugar substitutes.

In my taste tests, I've found the Sweet & Low to be the most awful-tasting of the sugar substitutes. So bad that it gives the other sugar substitutes a bad rap. Above is a photo of the Sweet & Low product, which appears to be composed of irregular gnarly crystals.

Equal nubs.

I found Equal to be the second worst in my taste tests. Actually, the difference in sweetness and aftertaste between Equal and Sweet & Low is quite dramatic, with Equal being the far better of the two. Its sweetness, however, is still lacking in comparison to real sugar, and it does still leave a slightly bitter aftertaste.

Splenda nubby crystals.

Splenda, one of the newer kids in the artificial sweetener world, is the best of the three fakers I tasted. It leaves the least bitter aftertaste and has the sweetest flavor of the three in this taste test. I believe it would still be very easy, however, to discern the difference between Splenda and real sugar in a blind taste test (which I did not conduct).

Raw cane sugar crystals.

Above is some good old raw cane sugar. Yum. The best in my taste test. Sweet and warm and a touch of caramel flavor.

Since I believe a naturally-occurring food product to be better for my health than a manufactured one, I'll be sticking with the classic sugar, thankyouverymuch.

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Leaves, leaves, leaves

Something a little different today. The leaves are so beautiful and the weather today was perfect for a fall day; I just had to pick up a few leaves.

While I realize these are not actually macro photos—in fact, they're much larger than what I typically shoot—they are still a wonder to look at and explore. They are still imagination food.

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Little Acorn, Tick, Price Label

The acorn above was about 10mm wide, a teensy tiny little acorn found in the park while the girls climbed and played.

Below is a photo of the dried remains of the tick that tried to eat Sarah alive. She found it on her leg after we returned from Stone Barns, a beautiful farm near Westchester, NY. She was worried she had popped its head off when she yanked it out, so we're happy to see the head intact here. This tick was about 1.2 - 2mm long.

This pic isn't super sharp to my liking—I had to use my extra macro adapter to make the tick large enough for the photo and this affects the sharpness. What happens at magnifications this high, with lenses as big as the 65mm MP-E, is a distortion called diffraction. Essentially, overall sharpness decreases with high magnification and high f-stop (small aperture). This is different than a shallow depth of field, which we also experience in high-magnification photography.

OK, enough with the macro/microphotography lesson!

At the bottom, we have a close-up of the print on a price label. I love the distressed typography and the texture of paper pulp.

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Homage to How It's Made: Broken Stick End, Holiday Ribbon, Bread Tab Printing

I love the simple, eclectic, postmodern-consumer poetry of the How It's Made episode descriptions in my Tivo guide. "How It's Made 5- Episode 4: Javelins, Cuckoo Clocks, Hearts of Palm, Windshield Wipers."

"Stuffed Olives, Astrolabes, Western Saddles."
"Pencils, Metal Recycling, Coffee."
"Sails, Walnuts, Wheel Immobilizers, Honeycomb Structural Panels."
"Giant Valves, Sardines, Barographs, Disposable Diapers."
"Accordions, Pineapples, Artificial Joints."

It's just too awesome. The items in these lists never go together. The production of the show is no-nonsense. It doesn't attempt to tell any story beyond what steps are necessary to manufacture the subject. The musical accompaniment sounds like simple muzak from the bonus CD in your Cheerios box. The show could not be done any more perfectly and I love it exactly like it is.

So, I'm going to try to imitate the How It's Made descriptions with my next several posts. I am not consciously trying to put incongruent items together, I'm just grabbing what I've got and posting. They might all be bugs or not. They might all be man-made or not. Doesn't matter. But they are simply the product of me taking what I've got and putting it out there.

Broken Stick End, Holiday Ribbon, Bread Tab Printing

Above we have the broken end of a stick, which was about 8mm wide in total. You can observe the xylem and phloem holes, through which would course the water, sap, and other nourishment the tree needs to grow. You can also see the fuzzy pulpiness of the wood toward the left side. We've seen paper pulp before, so here it is before processing.

Below is a microphoto of shiny holiday ribbon. This particular one was a translucent piece of ribbon, and unexpectedly (or maybe not in retrospect) the threads of the ribbon are clear. Pretty cool. You can also see how it is made of a simple woven pattern of these threads. I'm guessing they are acrylic.

At the bottom we have a number which had been printed on the closure tab for a loaf of bread. You know, those little plastic dealies you crimp on after twisting the extra bread bag closed? I shot the number because I like numbers and I like printing, and found this particular printing process left a cool texture within the number.

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Yellow Leaves

Some more leafiness and fallness.

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Wine and Cheese Social

It's standard practice to have refreshments, something like wine and cheese, for guests at an art opening or studio tour. For my Tiny Lab exhibit at the Hoboken Studio Tour, I chose to forego edible refreshments, and instead gave out small cards printed with macro images of wine and cheese. I had hoped these would be memorable and unique for my guests.

I did get some positive feedback, some visitors did seem delighted. And at least one blogger mentioned my refreshments in his blog. So I suppose it worked.

Above and below are two microphoto images of port. This came from the bottom of the bottle, so the sediment (composed primarily of shredded grape skins I guess) has collected in these drops I used in the setup. I love the color and luminance of these photos.

Below are two microphotos of cheese. The one directly below here is cheddar, and the one at the bottom of this post is gruyere. In both cases, I had simply sliced a thin sliver of cheese, and then torn the edge to get an interesting subject for the photo. Some visitors to Tiny Lab were a bit skeptical that this was cheese. I assure it you it was.

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Press: Viewing the world a little different this week - Louise Gale Blog

"...Studio Saynuk takes extreme close up photos of small everyday objects and when I stopped by the exhibit at the Open Studio day I couldn’t resist but to offer my favourite star earrings for them to experiment with and I love the results!"

> Read the full article

Sunflower Surprises

We had some large sunflowers in a vase at home, so I took a look with the macro lens. Here's what I found: A very tiny droplet and a blue crystal of some substance.

The water drop must have been quite small, considering the width of the photo measures an area only about 5mm wide. I didn't know it was there and didn't expect to find it while just shooting the end of  a couple petals.

The photo below contains some parts of the flower that I believe held pollen at one point. Unexpectedly, I found a tiny blue crystal nestled among the structures. I am guessing that it's the dried/crystallized remains of a pesticide or fertilizer that had been sprayed on the field of sunflowers.

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Hoboken Studio Tour/Tiny Lab: Money, Money, Money, Mo-ney

Above, you're being watched by Lincoln' eye, from a $5 bill. You can see the cotton fibers of the paper, and even a little shine off the ink where it's adhered to the fibers. Being a bit of a printing geek, I am intrigued by the amount of detail in the line art on this bill. It was shot on request at my exhibit during the Hoboken Studio Tour.

Below are two gold coins with ridged edges that look cool close up. One coin was from South Africa, and one was from the US, and they live together in the wallet of one of my visitors from the Studio Tour.

In case you missed it, here are some photos from my Tiny Lab exhibit the day of the Studio Tour. And if you are curious, here is a slideshow the photos I ultimately hung for that exhibition.

Thanks again for all your encouragement and support!

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More Bubbles in Streaming Tap Water

I have consistently received such a positive, surprised, and delighted response from my previous tap water photo, that I decided to shoot a few more for kicks. So here you go, tap water fans. Drink up.

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Hoboken Studio Tour/Tiny Lab: Edible, Not Edible

The image above is a microphoto of a Twizzler candy which I shot for some kids at my show. I didn't know these were full of bubbles!

Below is the edge of a Tootsie Roll wrapper, made of aluminum foil and a plastic coating. In blue at the bottom are silica gel pellets, also shot for a kid visiting show. DO NOT EAT!

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Hoboken Studio Tour/Tiny Lab: Watch Closely

The watch hands above were on the watch of a visitor to my Tiny Lab exhibit in the Hoboken Studio Tour. I like the dreamy quality of the light and the way the scratches and dust create haloed sparkles throughout the image.

The two photos below are other parts of the watch which have obviously been much loved. The texture of scuffs is great, and I love the little flecks of gold peeking through the layer of silver.

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Hoboken Studio Tour/Tiny Lab: Diamonds, Tough as Nails

The diamond above was on the ring of a visitor to my Tiny Lab exhibit in the Hoboken Studio Tour. It is an antique and supposedly some kind of special cut. Being that I'm not a gemologist (if that's a word) I have no way of knowing just how special the cut is.

I do, however, find the diamond very beautiful, and am fascinated by the facets and patterns created by them. Amazing.

Below is a square nailhead in the floor. It's been ground down by floor refinishing. Lucky for us, that makes an interesting pattern of scuffs that refract and scatter light into little prismatic rainbows.

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Press: A Gigantic Cough Drop – Part Deux - Andrew Mikhael Blog

"...Adam from tiny lab sent me two photos of my dusty old cough drop, that, after staying year in my coat pocket, managed to disappear before I could take a regular photo of it for comparison. But you’ve seen cough drops before, you know what they look like."

> Read the full article

Hoboken Studio Tour/Tiny Lab: Tiny Jewels

Another visitor to my Tiny Lab exhibit for the Hoboken Studio Tour asked me to shoot her earring {I think this was an earring}. The gems were very small, and the blue was enamel, I think.

The photo above was shot in beautiful, soft, white ambient daylight by a huge studio window. The photo below shot with a flash. You can see the difference in depth of field between a small aperture {below} and a large aperture {above} setting on my camera.

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