In 2021, I was given a microscope in exchange for some IT work. This set off a deep dive into the world of microscopy. As an aspiring photographer, I bought a number of others, each better suited for photography than the last, finally settling on a beautiful Leitz Orthoplan polarising microscope made in 1970.

With the microscopes, I discovered a world of beautiful shapes and patterns in crystals made from household chemicals, such as sweeteners, acids, and any substance that would crystallise. Although only millimetres in dimension, the subjects are all entirely real and physical. The angle I choose for each crystal in the beam of polarised light creates their endless permutation of shapes.

The addition of a wave plate produces a rainbow of colour. The scenes in my photographs are carefully discovered by visually scanning through countless glass slides coated with melted or evaporated substances. The actual photographed scene covers a tiny fraction of the area of the 75mm x 26mm slide that contains it.

Attaching my modern camera to my 53-year-old microscope (a complicated process with much experimentation, trial and plenty of error) has allowed me to go far beyond macro into the world of photomicrography, exploring and capturing a set of beautiful and captivating scenes.

Many thousands of photographs later, I settled on a selection of 16 of these, which were shown in a successful joint exhibition at Alveston Fine Art in London in March 2023. A further set was submitted to the IPA, and I was very proud that they won the nonprofessional Fine Art Photographer of the Year category, for which I was flown to New York to celebrate.

Portfolio: