Coral
Category
Fine Art
Location
West Molesey, Surrey, UK
Gear
Sony A7R iv on a 1970 Leitz Orthoplan polarising microscope
Description
Coral. A crystallised sweetener on a glass slide, a few millimetres across, photographed through a 1970 Leitz Orthoplan polarising microscope with a Sony A7Riv and a makeshift, home built retarder. Shot at 1/100, ISO 100. The crystal and the photograph made at my home in West Molesey, Surrey. The colour is not added, graded or generated. It is birefringence, polarised light interfering with itself as it passes through the crystal, and it is a direct reading of the material's own thickness and structure. If I turn the polarisers a few degrees, every colour in the frame changes. That angle is where the colour balance is found. I set the conditions and the crystal does the rest. The structure forms on its own and cannot be repeated. Each crystallisation exists once and is then gone. What I control is the slide, the region of it, the magnification, the framing and the angle of the light. The dark outlines that separate the lobed forms from the field behind them are not drawn. They are the boundaries where one crystal domain meets another, and they exist because the two are oriented differently to the light.
Photographer
Bevil Templeton-Smith
Social Media
Instagram: bevilts
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bevil
Website: https://www.bevilts.art
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