Microscopic photos of an Acrylate Microarray
Each blob is a print of plastic on this Acrylate Microarray sample slide
Scientists from the Department of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at La Trobe Uni asked for my help to photograph this “acrylate microarray”. They were having difficulty capturing the texture of the micron-sized spots “printed” on to the glass slide. The normal microscope used in a laboratory can only light from either above or below and, in my opinion, is rather harsh because it brings out every dust spot, scratch and hair rather than the form of the spots.
Drawing from my experience photographing gemstones, that also reflect and refract light,
I knew that “painting with light” would give a soft, diffused glow without shadows and if I used two different colours on either side then it would give a clean, smooth, graphic look that subtly brought out the form.
Photos of scientists at work on the SEM
While I was there I took some photos of the scientists at work to update their department photos. In the past I’ve shot these kind of photos with a clean, bright look but this time I wanted to create a bit of drama and injected some colour in the photos.
