Photomicrography - Where Macro Photography Leaves Off

LATE ENTRY - Hey guys - I am adding these links to the websites where you can find more information about some of my favorite photomicrographers. This is not an exhaustive list, but it is a great place to start. If you know of someone I should have on the list, but don’t, leave me a note and I will check them out.

One of my favorite websites ever is the Wim van Edmund masterpiece over at https://wimvanegmond.com/

Marek Mis can be found here - https://mismicrophoto.com/

Igor Siwanowicz has a great bio over on the Nikon Small Worlds site - https://www.nikonsmallworld.com/people/dr.-igor-siwanowicz

Ralph Grimm has a ton of images over on the Small World site, well worth checking out - https://www.nikonsmallworld.com/people/ralph-grimm

A few other names for you to track down include Hassanain Qambari, Ole Bielfeldt, Tim Boomer, Angel Navarro Gomez, and Sebastien Malo. Who would you add?

Photo courtesy Charles Krebs

On Friday of last week I had the distinct pleasure of spending three hours in conversation with Nikon Small Worlds Winner (2005) and one of the finest photomicrographers working today. His name is Charles Krebs, and for those of you who do not know him (yet), you are in for a treat. Our conversation was recorded and the discussion was illustrated with some thirty examples of Charlie’s work. With his permission I will share a couple of those images in this post, but to hear the entire interview and see all the images you will need to watch the video, which will be coming out later this week.

Cover for the soon to be released interview with Charlie Krebs

It was my intention to have it finished this weekend but a certain flu virus had other plans for me and the channel. I am almost back to full speed, and packed schedule or not, getting this out to you is priority. You do not want to miss this one!

Another perspective from Charles Krebs

Photomicrography is subtly different from the macro photography that we are most familiar with, and depending how you define the terms, there may be quite a bit of overlap. For the sake of this discussion, and in describing this week’s activities, I will use the dictionary definition of the term - Photomicrography is the process of capturing photographic images of microscopic subjects with the aid of a microscope. The lines get blurred when you consider high magnification macro photography, which is the process of capturing photographic images pf microscopic subjects with the aid of a modified microscope (extension tubes, tube lens, and objective lens - yeah, I know, just like in a microscope). Charlie does most of his work using vertically positioned microscopes, with a few modifications for focus stacking, and he has chosen this arrangement because he likes to photograph living, aquatic organisms under high magnification - something more easily accomplished with a more traditional microscope.

The beauty of the barnacle - photograph courtesy of charles krebs

His photography is beyond magnificent, as you will see, but his technical excellence is only part of the reason. The real magic comes from his uncanny ability to pull the breathtaking beauty from ordinarily unremarkable subjects, often using only carefully crafted lighting to create unforgettable works of art. Watch the video - you will see exactly what I am talking about.

One more from the master - courtesy of charles krebs

One thing we hardly touched on was his post-production workflow, but don’t worry,  the third episode of After Stack took care of that just a few hours later, on Saturday morning. Because this is a live event, it does not require a great deal of editing and the resulting After Stack video is already up on YouTube and can be found by following this link - https://youtu.be/qsfb2WEU7UE

What about this week’s events? Well there are FOUR of them, at least four, I have lost count. Let’s start with tomorrow, Tuesday. Our first stream is part one of a two part discussion about photomicrography.

What’s this photomicrography, you say? Show up tomorrow and I’ll tell you all about it - I will give you a hint - it was my conversation with Charlie Krebs that got me thinking about this theme for the week. Here is link to the live event - https://youtube.com/live/ROxbOLNi0kU?feature=share

Seeing as the Krebs interview video is not ready yet, we will use this as a tease and give you a chance to see a few more of his amazing images!

Not surprisingly, the second stream, Thursday’s Macro Talk Two, is part II of the same discussion.

Which you can join just be clicking here… https://youtube.com/live/48o_eALVKXA?feature=share

The July competition wraps up at midnight on Thursday, so I will be busy working with special guest judge Harold Hall, to do the judging and make an entertaining results video for you to watch. HOWEVER, if there are still only three entries by Friday morning, I may be too depressed to make the video - you wouldn’t let that happen, would you? Come on guys - go to the grocery store, get inspired, buy a grape, and go home to photograph it before Friday morning. Don’t want to go to the shops? No problem, I’ll Fedex you a grape.

If all goes to plan I will be firing up the Zoom machine on Saturday morning for another Pzoom.

I will put your invitation to the meeting over on my Patreon page where you will also find  a breakdown of my plans for  the day. If you are not a Patreon subscriber (yet), then now would be an awesome time to change that! All you have to do is pop over to https://www.patreon.com/allanwallsphotography, press a few buttons, and hey presto! You’re in! Wasn’t that easy?

This Saturday we will get to a couple of your personal introductions in our “getting to know you” series. Bud Perrott is going to kick things off with an update on recent developments in his studio. If time permits I am going to FINALLY introduce you to the production version of the Walls XPOL viewer that I have been literally been shedding blood, sweat, and tears (lots of each) to finish. The more important part of this story is the vast amount of real design and printing experience this opportunity has given me. I feel like the innumerable stumbles and false starts have given me the kind of modeling and printing experience you just can’t get any other way. I will walk through the high and low points of the process - and I may even show you the shipping container full of plastic parts that ended up being sacrificially melted for the cause!

If you have been waiting patiently to to get my impressions of the amazing OptoLux Lighting System I used for several months this spring, I have once again reached out to the company to get a release date for the video. Hopefully this will will happen in the very near future - I will keep you posted.

And finally, my first interview with Lester Lefkowitz, briefly postponed to allow me to finish moving will be getting rescheduled this week. I am delighted to let you know that Lester has a fresh printing of his excellent two-volume masterpiece almost ready for you - so if you have been waiting to grab one or both of these excellent books, I will have news for you later this week!

I think that is enough for one day! Hope to see all of you tomorrow evening!

With warm regards, Allan

PS One last treat from Charles Krebs

Courtesy of charlie Krebs, and like all the images in this post, used by permission