Vinyl record

This is a photograph showing how the sound is made on a vinyl record.  The needle is made to vibrate as it runs along the grooves.  The more wobbly the line, the higher the pitch of the sound.  It was a great system, and vinyl is still favoured by many for the distinct tone it gives. This portion of the record is about 1mm long, so a split second of sound is all that is shown here.  Thanks to Thor Haugen for the idea (and the record).  It’s a pointer sisters track, by the way, I wonder which bit?

The Moon

This is the moon over Oxfordshire on the 3rd December 2009.  Nearly full, but because it’s not you can see the details of the craters and impact marks all over it.  It’s really taken a beating over the years, but it’s still there, and worth taking a closer look at.  There’s ice on there.  If you look closely you can probably see it…

Water drops

This is the result of experimenting with lighting liquids.  The photographs are standard high speed water drops, but lit in particular ways to make the three dimensional quality of the coloured coronets stand out. Essentially the technique involves lighting the liquid through itself to eliminate any reflections or distracting highlights.  I never get tired of seeing the random nature of these moments in time.  Sometimes what you can’t see is much more beautiful than what you can.  The action is frozen using high speed flash triggered by an infra-red beam and shot through a 1930’s Rapax shutter attached to the front of a Micro-nikkor 105mm f/4 lens.  Very often old equipment is better than new equipment.

Dandelions blowing in the wind

High speed dandelion seeds.  It took over 200 separate dandelion heads to produce about ten usable photographs.  The way the seeds leave the head is at best unpredictable.  Photo taken using an infra-red trigger and flash at about 1/50,000 second to freeze the seeds in the air.  Nikon D300, Micro-Nikkor 105/4.

Compound Eyes 3

This is the closest I’ve got so far to anything.  Taken through a Swift Microscope with a Swift 10x objective and Nikon 2.5x Photo eyepiece, this is the same eye as in the post below but this time it’s plain that the structure of a wasp’s eye is made up of hexagonal elements.  the hexagons are not perfect, but the shape of the eye determines the shape they can be at any one point.  Lighting was achieved by the use of a tracing paper diffuser held around the objective with a rubber band and encircling the head of the wasp.  I’ve finally nearly got rid of chromatic aberrations at this magnification.

Compound eyes 2

This is the eye of a wasp.  Unlike bees they have clean compound eyes, very highly developed.  The structure is a honeycomb of hexagonal elements, which combine to form a rudimentary image.  They eyes cannot focus like human eyes, but they can see in most directions at the same time, which gives the insect a clear warning when anything approaches. Taken through a Swift Microscope with a 4x objective.

David Haye

Three days before his fight I just wanted to wish David the best of luck (not that he’ll need it).  We spent a fantastic few days filming with David and Adam Booth in Northern Cyprus at the end of last year.  Having spent many long hours working in the ring with him and seeing just how fit and fast he is, even in temperatures up to 45 degrees I fear for anyone who takes him on.  He was born to be World Heavyweight Champion, and one day soon he will be!  On our last day he took us up into the mountains where he likes to run and this is one of many photographs taken up there.  As well as being enormously talented, he is one of the most likeable people I’ve ever met. This picture also serves to prove I sometimes put ordinary lenses on my Nikon too.  UPDATE!  Congratulations David.  great Work!  David is now WBA World Champion!

Lyniphid spider in web

This is a Lyniphid spider.  They are often called money spiders and live under a sort of carpet of web rather than on a classic orb.  It looks upside down because it is, almost permanently.  Those huge jaws grab the prey from below when it falls onto the web carpet.  there are many different species of Lyniphia, so this is a difficult one to identify clearly.  They are all small and fast.  Photographed using flash at about 6x magnification with a Nikon D300 and Zeiss Luminar.  All spiders are miracles of evolution and each is perfectly adapted to its own style of hunting.  The eyes in this genus are not well developed because they use the vibrations in the web to locate their prey.

The pen is mightier than the sword

Slightly more prosaic subject matter, but ballpoint pens are really a miracle of engineering.  When you use them they pick up small pieces of paper and fibres.  These eventually go inside the ball and clog up the mechanism, but considering the balls are far less than a millimetre in diameter it’s amazing they work so often.  I’ve spent all morning seeing the differences between brands and they vary enormously.  Lighting them is also a challenge.

Sweets? No, more pollen.

 

This looks like sugar coated sweets, but it’s actually lily pollen.  This is the stuff that stains all the curtains and gets everywhere.  It’s sticky, but colourful.  Each grain of pollen has a sticky surface which allows it to be collected by pollenating insects such as bees.  Because of its colour, it also makes a great subject for microphotography.  This was taken using a Nikon Achromat x10 microscope objective and highly modified Lomo microscope with a fabricated Nikon Phototube.