Kosher Sea Salt

We recently acquired some kosher sea salt, which upon inspection, appears pinkish, with dark red dots. So, I shot it.

I'm still not sure what the red chunks are made of. Perhaps earthen clay or some other organic material? They do sometimes have salt crystals growing in them, and off of them.

The pinkish cast of the salt can be explained by the little bits of that dark red material mixed in and on the individual salt crystals.

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Assorted Stuff: Penny with Salt, 17 Pages, and Serrated

Here are some early pictures from my new lens, a Canon MP-E 65mm dedicated macro lens. So, how's it perform? I'm still getting used to it and changing around the way I use light in order to accommodate it, but I have a few photos I'm happy with already.

Above is an almost microscopic photo of a penny on which I had sprinkled salt. The magnification is somewhere between 8-10x life size (in my camera, making it much greater magnification here on your computer screen).

Below are 17 pages of a book, viewed on end. It was regular paper, not extra thick or anything... this new lens just allows me to get that close a photo. I'm a bit amazed.

Below the paper photo is a serrated edge of a knife, about one full serration (if that's a word). It was clean, so I'm guessing that those little crystals are simply some bit of soap or dishwasher solution that may have dried on the blade, crystallizing in the process.

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Salt

Just revisiting salt crystals a with different lighting setup. Last time I shot salt, it was lit with scattered light. This time, it's a transmitted light setup. These are techniques used (to far better effect with far better equipment) by snowflake photographer, Ken Libbrecht. Again, this is regular, old teensy tiny salt crystals.

I was hoping that the transmitted light technique—which is more like the way a microscope captures an image, whereby light comes from the beneath the image instead of above—would help me to capture more detail in the salt crystals. I think it kind of captured the crystals in a different way, but not with the detail I'd hoped. Instead of highlighting left and right edges with different colors, the light pattern simply mixed into purple.

This could be a result of the kind of edges that are present in salt crystals, or it could be because I don't actually have a microscope for my shooting.

At any rate, I liked that in this photo, we can see that salt crystals seem to form in squares, and grow out from there, before being shattered into salt.

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Superpost: 6 Seasons in Macro

Just your typical black pepper.

I've shot some spices and seasonings to compare their makeup. It's interesting seeing differences that aren't immediately apparent with the naked eye. For instance, the pepper above is gnarly and big. Being a dried berry of the pepper plant, it's skin is similar to that of the dried wrinkly berry from the previous post. Though smaller, blacker, and crispier.

Below is a look at more seasonings. See how the sugar and the salt are composed of completely different kinds of crystals? The sugar crystals are prism-like and often well formed little geometric shapes. Whereas the salt is sort of chippy, like chipped ice or something. Try rubbing the two between your fingers separately, and see if you can feel the difference in their structures. The sugar may feel more rolling, and the salt may feel more slippy, like all those tiny plates sliding against eachother. The difference is very subtle with such small forms, however.

I've also posted a shot of cinnamon, which, according to this report, is one of the 10 best foods for your health that you're not eating. I, of course, am eating it because it's freaking delicious on toast. Just not every day.

Also further below are red pepper (ground cayenne) and crowd-pleasing curry.

Just regular old white sugar.

Just plain old sodium chloride... er, salt.

Tasty, and apparently good-for-you cinnamon.

Firey ground cayenne pepper powder.

Delicious curry powder.

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