Giant Blocks of Sugar Rocks

This is a sugar crystal. A big one. This sucker was about 4 or 5cm across. I like the misty blue effect along the top of the crystal in the photo above. This is actually a simple light smear due to camera shake.

The colors in these photos are from Legos that surrounded the sugar crystals when I was shooting. Crystals pickup the reflected tones, shadows and light that surround them. I was intrigued by the textures on/in the crystals that looked like rain on a window.

I love the geometric-ness of many of the crystals we grew. I made them with the kids by making a super-saturated solution of sugar and water, then we placed sticks in it and waited, and waited... and waited.

It took about three weeks for us to get pretty good sticks encrusted with big, blocky crystals. I was surprised it took so long, all the online tutorials for growing great sugar crystals made it sound like it was a much faster process. We also saw a lot of extra crystal growth on the bottom of the cups. I think this happened because we must have had a little un-dissolved sugar in the solution.

Below are the crystal-encrusted sticks we grew, and from which these photos have come.

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Alien Lifeforms

The centers of poinsettia blooms (they're actually just awesomely-colored leaves as my horticulturist/landscape architect uncle Pete has informed me) contain some alien-looking parts. Like alien eggs ready to hatch, and alien baby tentacles reaching out innocently for your delicious brains. I've added a non-macro photo of these center bits below where they are nestled inside the colorful leaves of the plant, so you can understand the true size of the parts we are looking at here.

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Ever Wonder What Pollen Looks Like?

Well, Here you go.

The pictures in this post successively magnify the stamen of a flower and then we zoom into the pollen it's holding. I think they ultimately look like Spanish yellow rice.

As I understand it, pollen comes in all shapes and sizes, these just being one variety which is fairly large. I estimate these particular pollen grains at about .2 mm, or about 150-200 micrometers each.

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Play That Fungi Music, White Boy

The pod above is about the same thickness of the pin point I posted several weeks back. And look at all that detail around its little edge! Pretty cool.

Below is a picture of a mushroom that I flubbed by over-exposing it, but I like the look after dialing in some contrast, so, whatever.

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The Dandiest of Lions

These microphotos show one seed "parachute" from a dandelion, or blow flower. I've shot dandelions like this before while in Canada, here. Though the previous dandelion appears to be a bit different from this one.

Note in the last photo of this series how the seeds attach to the center of the parachute bell by way of a long thin arm, whereas the other dandelion's seeds seem to extend a stylish fin from their parachutes to their flower center.

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A Magnolia Leaf

Mimi picked up a magnolia leaf and wanted me to shoot it. This is the result.

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Holographic Paper

The kids have some holographic craft paper. I actually think it's aluminum or mylar, not paper.

Here are some microphotos of it, whatever it's made of. Its beautiful, prismatic shine is lots of fun for the girls, and also still mesmerizing to me.

I found it interesting to see that the aluminum/mylar/paper is embedded with millions of microscopic reflective "pixels" that split light into colors from the spectrum. Totally cool. I'm also intrigued how much these photos look like photos of an LCD display.

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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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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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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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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: 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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100th Post! Hoboken Studio Tour, a Slideshow, and Bubbles?

So here we are at my 100th photo post at Morning Macro.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all three of my fans—and Mom—for visiting my photo posts so consistently. I have really enjoyed building this site, and if I could make a career of shooting tiny stuff right about now, I absolutely would.

Which brings up my next bit of news! I will be exhibiting in the Hoboken Studio Tour on Sunday, October 18, from noon to 6pm. I will show some large prints of macro photos (approx 30x45"), and I will setup two macro-lens cameras for visitors to try hands-on.

Additionally, I encourage anyone stopping by to bring an tiny intriguing item the size of a nickel or smaller. I will shoot a macro/micro photo of it on the spot and email the photo to its owner free of charge!

I will have more details about my (borrowed) studio location soon. So, make the trip to Hoboken later this month, swing by and say hi!

Last time I mentioned my impending 100th post, I said I was going to switch up the goal of the site. I wanted to look forward and bring Morning Macro to more people in more ways. Since then, we've seen a first attempt at what can be done with macro video, and I will be exhibiting at the upcoming event mentioned above. Plus, the Tiny Lab I'll setup for the Hoboken Studio Tour will bring the macro and micro world to more people. So, here's another cool thing...

I've setup a slideshow of all the Morning Macro photos, and a few that have never been posted (easter eggs!). I will try to keep this up to date, but that may not always happen. For instance, today's new post below is not in the slideshow. Oops! Also, the photos are not in the order that they had been posted to the site. So go take a look! What are you waiting for?

Now, I again ask that my three loyal fans—and Mom—send my Morning Macro site around to anyone you know who would appreciate it. And keep sending your suggestions for something tiny you'd like to see big!

Now, on to some celebratory bubbles! These bubbles below were roughly the size of this "o". I used a bit of a frozen raspberry, and squirted some cleaning solution from a spray bottle on it. The resulting shimmery bubbles against the deep raspberry color were really beautiful to me.

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Grass Seed Stalk

We've looked at grass seed stalks before when they were fresh picked and green. Here is the same thing, dried and after dropping all the seeds. The stalk has changed color to a deep ruby, and the little caps that had secured the seeds to the stalk are all that's left. Very cool, I didn't know what to expect, and it's fascinating!

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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!

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Artsy Insects

I like the shot above because it kind of looks like a cool book cover or a poster for a sci-fi movie about flies taking over the world.

I have several pics of some bugs we saw in Muskoka (Peninsula Lake, to be specific), and decided to start you all off lightly with a couple more artistic, soft photos. We will get to the creepier, crawlier ones, to be sure.

Below is a bee who hung out on a leaf long enough for me to snap a frame or two. I like the soft focus and prismatic colors on the wings.

{CORRECTION: The insect below actually appears to be a type of hoverfly, likely a female Sphaerophoria scripta}

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