honorable mention
Bevil Templeton-Smith united kingdom
title
Substance Abuse
The subjects although only millimetres in dimension are all entirely real and physical things. Their endless permutation of shapes and colours are created by the angle I have chosen for each crystal in polarised light. The addition of a wave plate produces a rainbow of colour. The scenes photographed are carefully discovered through a process of visually scanning through countless microscope slides, coated with melted or evaporated substances. The actual photographed scene is usually less than 0.5% of the area of the 75mm x 26mm slide which contains it.
Attaching my modern camera to my 53 year old microscope has allowed me to go beyond macro, into the world of photomicrography, exploring and capturing a set of beautiful and captivating scenes of shape and colour. Many thousands of photographs later, I whittled down to a selection of 16 of these which were shown in a successful joint exhibition at Alveston Fine Art in London in March 2023.
The title of this project - Substance Abuse - refers to the fact that these chemicals, or substances were never intended to be used to produce art. They are each spectacularly uninteresting, usually a white, powder. However once melted or dissolved, they come alive when placed in a beam of polarised light.
I have also been an amateur photographer for almost all of this time and have photographed subjects from astro to macro, products to events, portraits to landscapes. Many paid jobs, but usually for fun.
However pleasing my photographs of wildlife, city life, seascapes, astronomy targets and macro spiders might be, I feel the photography world has a huge wealth of this kind of photography. Rising above the many other enormously talented photographers doing similar work is extremely difficult or requires great luck. I was very keen to find myself a unique corner of the photography world, and I believe that after all this time taking thousands and thousands of other photographs, I might have found my niche.
During the coronavirus lockdowns, I started buying vintage German research microscopes. In particular - Leitz Orthoplan microscopes - of which I now have four.
With my microscopes, I began a project of photographing crystals of various household materials and chemicals that I concocted on various melting and evaporating plates, in order to photograph in polarised light. With these, I have worked and reworked scenes, colours and compositions until I have found and managed to photograph magical landscapes of colour, texture and pattern. These images are not contrived or created in software. They are real, and are often revisited and reimagined with slight modification to the polarising equipment and wave plates to find the perfect composition.
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entry description
This work is part of an ongoing photographic project, begun during the Covid restrictions. My housebound goal was to find something interesting to photograph. At that time, I was given a microscope in exchange for some IT work. This serendipitously saw me delve into the world of microscopy, buying a number of other microscopes, better suited for photography. With these I discovered a world of beautiful shapes and patterns in crystals made from household chemicals (sweeteners, acids, etc.). Photographed in polarised light, on my 1970 Leitz Orthoplan research microscope.The subjects although only millimetres in dimension are all entirely real and physical things. Their endless permutation of shapes and colours are created by the angle I have chosen for each crystal in polarised light. The addition of a wave plate produces a rainbow of colour. The scenes photographed are carefully discovered through a process of visually scanning through countless microscope slides, coated with melted or evaporated substances. The actual photographed scene is usually less than 0.5% of the area of the 75mm x 26mm slide which contains it.
Attaching my modern camera to my 53 year old microscope has allowed me to go beyond macro, into the world of photomicrography, exploring and capturing a set of beautiful and captivating scenes of shape and colour. Many thousands of photographs later, I whittled down to a selection of 16 of these which were shown in a successful joint exhibition at Alveston Fine Art in London in March 2023.
The title of this project - Substance Abuse - refers to the fact that these chemicals, or substances were never intended to be used to produce art. They are each spectacularly uninteresting, usually a white, powder. However once melted or dissolved, they come alive when placed in a beam of polarised light.
about the photographer
I am an IT consultant and programmer, having worked in this field in London for nearly thirty years. I have worked with countless clients in the arts and creative fields. I am also the son of two successful lifelong artists, so creative expression in visual form has always been a part of me.I have also been an amateur photographer for almost all of this time and have photographed subjects from astro to macro, products to events, portraits to landscapes. Many paid jobs, but usually for fun.
However pleasing my photographs of wildlife, city life, seascapes, astronomy targets and macro spiders might be, I feel the photography world has a huge wealth of this kind of photography. Rising above the many other enormously talented photographers doing similar work is extremely difficult or requires great luck. I was very keen to find myself a unique corner of the photography world, and I believe that after all this time taking thousands and thousands of other photographs, I might have found my niche.
During the coronavirus lockdowns, I started buying vintage German research microscopes. In particular - Leitz Orthoplan microscopes - of which I now have four.
With my microscopes, I began a project of photographing crystals of various household materials and chemicals that I concocted on various melting and evaporating plates, in order to photograph in polarised light. With these, I have worked and reworked scenes, colours and compositions until I have found and managed to photograph magical landscapes of colour, texture and pattern. These images are not contrived or created in software. They are real, and are often revisited and reimagined with slight modification to the polarising equipment and wave plates to find the perfect composition.
back to gallery