It’s A Small World: Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition

Our world has become a small one, made of lightly jostling bubbles. Time moves quicker than usual, but in the moment, it’s at a snail’s pace. This new insular world we’ve created for ourselves is due to an even smaller world of microorganisms that inexplicably have the power to ravage our civilisation. They’re small, but powerful.

While Covid wasn’t the particular focus of the 47th Annual Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition, it still comes to mind as we look at the veins of a leaf, a shot of networking neurons, and the legs and claws of a hog louse. Looking closely at these images, we can see that there is almost infinite complexity. The further we look down into a subject, the more it has to tell us.
The first place shot was made by Jason Kirk (see right). The shot of an oak leaf’s trichomes, stomata and vessels was made of 200 individual images of the leaf stacked together into one image. To pull it off, he had to use a custom-made microscope system that combines colour filtered transmitted light with diffused reflected light
“The lighting side of it was complicated,” said Jason. “Microscope objectives are small and have a very shallow depth of focus. I couldn’t just stick a giant light next to the microscope and have the lighting be directional. It would be like trying to light the head of a pin with a light source that’s the size of your head. Nearly impossible.”

With increasing complexity comes increasingly complex methods to deal with the situation. But for us, we can sit back, relax and appreciate what these artists have managed to achieve.