honorable mention
Sally Warring united states
title
Green Algae on Agar
One of the challenges of photomicroscopy is that the depth of focus is extremely shallow, and when photographing the organisms growing on an uneven surface like an agar plate, it is hard to get a full-frame in focus. To solve this these images are focus stacks, a combination of several images to give greater depth of focus to the final image.
I exclusively photograph microscopic organisms with the aim of sharing the beauty and wonder of these organisms with a greater audience. You can check out more of my work at www.pondlifepondlife.com
I got interested in photography and filmmaking through working with microscopic organisms in the lab. Microbes are visually stunning and biologically intriguing. They come in stunning shapes, forms, and colors. They build communities and they go it alone. They are architects, builders, travelers, parasites, hunters, scavengers, and prey. They have sex lives and mating rituals. All of this can only be appreciated when these organisms are viewed through a microscope. I use photo and video to document these beautiful organisms, and introduce them to a wider community.
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entry description
These are photographs of microscopic organisms, algae, taken through a microscope. Here the organisms are magnified two hundred times. The algae are growing on top of an agar plate and when they do this they form beautiful shapes and patterns that can only be seen when magnified.One of the challenges of photomicroscopy is that the depth of focus is extremely shallow, and when photographing the organisms growing on an uneven surface like an agar plate, it is hard to get a full-frame in focus. To solve this these images are focus stacks, a combination of several images to give greater depth of focus to the final image.
I exclusively photograph microscopic organisms with the aim of sharing the beauty and wonder of these organisms with a greater audience. You can check out more of my work at www.pondlifepondlife.com
about the photographer
I'm a biologist, photographer, filmmaker, and science communicator based in New York City. I grew up in New Zealand. I have a B.Sc. with Honors in botany from the University of Melbourne in Australia, and a Ph.D. in genomics and molecular biology from New York University. I'm currently a postdoctoral research scholar at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.I got interested in photography and filmmaking through working with microscopic organisms in the lab. Microbes are visually stunning and biologically intriguing. They come in stunning shapes, forms, and colors. They build communities and they go it alone. They are architects, builders, travelers, parasites, hunters, scavengers, and prey. They have sex lives and mating rituals. All of this can only be appreciated when these organisms are viewed through a microscope. I use photo and video to document these beautiful organisms, and introduce them to a wider community.
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