Aphids!

This is my first post in a long time. Starting a business really soaks up the leisure time!

We planted some flowers and veggies on the deck, and recently found aphids in one of the plants. Before spraying them out (or sicking a rabid ladybug on them) i took a few micropics. The big aphid was about 3mm long, the baby ones about 1 to 1.5 mm.

Aphids were harmed in the making of these photos. Well... they were harmed afterward.

buy this print

Visit MorningMacro at StudioSaynuk for more great images

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.

Send me your suggestions for something tiny that you'd like to see big.

buy this print

Visit MorningMacro at StudioSaynuk for more great images

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.

Send me your suggestions for something tiny that you'd like to see big.

buy this print

Visit MorningMacro at StudioSaynuk for more great images

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.

Send me your suggestions for something tiny that you'd like to see big.

buy this print

Visit MorningMacro at StudioSaynuk for more great images

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.

Send me your suggestions for something tiny that you'd like to see big.

buy this print

Visit MorningMacro at StudioSaynuk for more great images

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.

Send me your suggestions for something tiny that you'd like to see big.

buy this print

Visit MorningMacro at StudioSaynuk for more great images

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.

Send me your suggestions for something tiny that you'd like to see big.

buy this print

Visit MorningMacro at StudioSaynuk for more great images

Just a Flashlight

I just thought this turned out kind of beautiful. It's really a very plain macro photo of the reflective cone inside a flashlight. The patterns fascinate me and I like it's sense of luminance.

Send me your suggestions for something tiny that you'd like to see big.

buy this print

Visit MorningMacro at StudioSaynuk for more great images

85th Post, Some Planty Things

Let's take a short break from the bugs. Today we're looking at plantlife. The blossom above was about the size of a button on your cell phone. Judy and Kyla were there when this was shot, so they can correct my memory if I'm wrong ;-)

I understand why macro photographers shoot primarily bugs and flowers. They're endlessly fascinating and detailed. The smaller you go, the more detail you find. Bugs in particular are made up of all their plates of armor and bizarre hair and feathery scales, and spikes, and prismatic wings and club-like antennae and more.

But I contend that limiting one's self to bugs and flowers is an unfortunate form of tunnel vision. We've seen here at Morning Macro just how interesting the normal and boring items of our everyday life are. And, from recent conversations with some fans, I've found that this is part of the fun of the photos here—a game that site visitors play, trying to guess what these things are before reading to find out. It seems that the site's tagline, "think a little differently about the world around you" appropriately echoes the mindset of this audience.

So, this is my 85th entry to Morning Macro. I don't want to meta-discourse too long here, but I'm excited that soon we will see the 100th post here. That would put us at approximately 1 post for every 3.5 days, often with multiple photos. This venture is proving to accomplish my original goal: to make me create art regularly. So lets change that original goal to a new target.

I am going to aim for an art show of some of this content, and maybe some that has never appeared here. I also want to bring more Morning Macro to more people. This might be through something book-like, or video, or something else.

We'll figure out the details soon enough, but in the meantime, I want to ask my small (but loyal) audience to send a link to this site to their friends and family that you think might find this interesting, fascinating, beautiful, freaky, or any other emotion. In my mind if somebody has a vague to strong reaction to my photos, I've done some part of my job as an artist.

I want feedback and ideas for more photos. I want to know what you think might be interesting should we see it magnified. I want more ideas in more places. And we'll see where this little adventure goes.

I'm so thankful to those of you who have been following the past nine months.

Above, you see a cute little berry which was about the size of a BB. I like the fall-ish colors of this photo. Very Thanksgiving-y for those visitors from the U.S.

Below is a close-up of a spiky plant thing. I like the sense of dimension in this one as the object turns away from the lens. Also note the teensy tiny cobweb. I suppose it could be caterpillar silk or something else made by a little guest I'm not aware of. Either way, consider that this is the closest I can currently magnify an object, so the little guy that made that silk must be just about microscopic.

Thanks again for all your support and encouragement!

Send me your suggestions for something tiny that you'd like to see big.

buy this print

Visit MorningMacro at StudioSaynuk for more great images

Fastenation

I'm sorry I have not posted in about 7 days... we were out of town, and the past few days after getting back have been kinda hectic. But I'll try to keep pace here as we move through the rest of the summer.

Yes I know I spelled "fascination" incorrectly up there. It's a pun, freak. Today, we're looking closely at some fasteners.

Above you see the business end of a typical snap button. Looks a lot like a turbine jet engine, doesn't it? It's mate is below, reminiscent of a manhole in the street.

Below is Velcro™, or something like it. I think the generic name is fastening tape or sumthin'. This particular "fastening tape" was a feature on the of one of my girls' shoes.

I eat zippers. No, the thing below is not a monorail or a tiny tunnel for lower case n's. It's a zipper, silly.

Send me your suggestions for something tiny that you'd like to see big.

buy this print

Visit MorningMacro at StudioSaynuk for more great images

I'd like to order a Tab, please

I found this on the dresser. It's the plastic tab from a store price tag which had been removed from recently purchased clothing. I've posted it today because even this most pedestrian little item is interesting to see magnified.

Send me your suggestions for something tiny that you'd like to see big.

buy this print

Visit MorningMacro at StudioSaynuk for more great images

Back to Say Hi

Seriously, what happened to me!?!?

I realize that the three of you who used to check this site regularly have probably left never to return. At least, you are standing with your back to me, pretending I'm not, uh, posting.

And you have a right to be mad at me. I too have disappointed me. And not for the first time.

So, here are some flowers to make up for the time we've been apart. Please rip them to pieces dramatically and throw them to the floor. But first consider how cool they look. This was shot by removing my 50mm lens from the camera body, and holding it out away from the camera, and tilting a little for some distortion. What results is something like a heavily distorted macro photo.

I've decided to explore ideas that stretch my imagination in photography... the above being one of them. I kind of like the touch that making an imperfect photo brings to the observer. Digital photos are engineered to be perfect, and so I will start creating imperfect photos so counter. Why should I do what anybody else can do, and is doing?

Send me your suggestions for something tiny that you'd like to see big.

buy this print

Visit MorningMacro at StudioSaynuk for more great images