brown hydra with ingested mosquito larva

My entries for the 2011 Nikon Small World photo contest are in. The contest is open to photographs taken through a light microscope. I began photographing images though my microscope several years ago when I was preparing a microscopy science lab for the local 4th grade class. I volunteered in my son’s class preparing and teaching one science lab a month. Most of these students had never used a microscope before and often had trouble finding what was under the microscope. They just didn’t know what they were looking for. By showing them pictures of what they should be seeing, they were able to get started much more quickly.

The Small World contest is in it’s 37th year. Each year Nikon posts a gallery of the best images online which you can browse here and see some truly amazing images taken with various microscopy techniques. My images are more simple than most of these as I limit my work to common live specimens at fairly low magnification that beginning microscopists might encounter. You can see more examples of my work here.

Clarkia unguiculata  elegant clarkia

I enjoy nature and spend a lot of time outdoors. A few years ago I volunteered to inventory plants in Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park for the East Bay Regional Park District. I used photographs rather than collecting specimens to document plants. Got lots of practice doing macro photography as many of the flowers are tiny! View my California Wildflowers at iStockphoto.

Recently returned from 3 weeks in India where I attended iStockphoto’s Indialypse. We did the Golden Triangle – Delhi, Jaipur and Agra – and the Pushkar Camel Fair with multiple model shoots in each location. Between shoots I managed to sneak in some nature photos. I also went on the extension to Ranthambhore National Park to photograph the native wildlife.