Photographers Teresa Zgoda/Teresa Kugler; Andrei Savitsky; Karl Deckart
Nikon Small World
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NATURE can be so strange and beautiful that it challenges our perception of reality. And rarely is this truer than at the microscopic scale, where even familiar forms turn into something alien.
Take the psychedelic-looking animal (top image). It is clearly a turtle, but Teresa Zgoda and Teresa Kugler from the US have used stereomicroscopy and fluorescence to take hundreds of colourful photographs of the different layers of this embryo, then stitched them together to give us an otherworldly glimpse inside the reptile’s shell. Their stunning final image has won them the 2019 .
The image that came 9th subverts the idea of the beauty of flowers. It is a cross section of a tulip bud by Andrei Savitsky from Ukraine. At the centre is the female pistil, surrounded by six male stamens – rendered as blue and yellow butterflies by having their tops sliced off. Around them, petals and sepals curl delicately.
Perhaps the strangest image, which came 17th, was created by Karl Deckart from Germany. Is it a furry mammal’s eye? Or the end of a ±è±ð²¹³¦´Ç³¦°ì’s feather? No, it is an essential part of your diet. Deckart dissolved crystals of vitamin C and let them recrystallise on a microscope slide. He then used a polarisation filter to create the stunning colours of the eye-like shape you see. And it isn’t your imagination – it is looking right back at you.
