The Infinite in the Small

A universe in red algae with spirorbis planets

I have a book called, "The Voice of the Infinite in the Small". It is about insects, so I love it. I often think about the way that we scale up to the infinite when we look at the sky. We see expansion. We are so small and everything "out there" is so large in comparison. 

Similarly, we can find the infinite in the small. When you look at tiny organisms and magnify them, you realize that infinity stretches that way, too. That is one of the things that fascinates me about the work that I am doing. I am constantly shifting the scale and seeing so much more than I ever knew existed.

I mentioned before that I have been photographing live bryozoans. I found some in the aquariums, here. As the days have gone by, I have honed my skills and can now take fairly clear photographs of these teeny tinies with just my macro lens. To the naked eye, they look like white smudges, but up close, they look like this:

This side-by-side comparison shows how the clarity of my photos has improved over the past few days. The one on the left was an earlier attempt. The species on the left is "coffin box", an invasive species. They are causing environmental harm in the wild and are also quite a nuisance and difficult to remove from the inside of the aquarium walls. They are beautiful, though, and I wish they had left some on the inside of the tank for me to photograph again. But they cleaned the tanks, so I will have to wait for them to re-appear. And they will.

My pictures of the tiny calcareous tubeworms have also improved. This one looks like you might like to hang a Christmas ornament on it:

Of course, a microscope equipped with a camera would take me even further in my pursuit of the tiny.

Tomorrow, I will try my hand at photographing plankton through a microscope, courtesy of AHOI. Stay tuned!