These are the sensory organs (palpi) of a common housefly magnified at 300x. Part of a fly's mouth parts. Image obtained with a Leitz Ortholux Pol microscope using darkfield illumination. Composed full-frame.

This image looks like a detail from Hieronymus Bosch's depiction of hell in "The Garden of Delights". Image is a fly palpus magnified 450x, and one of my first photomicrographs. This image was obtained with an old B&L microscope using darkfield illumination and with regular negative film. Prepared balsam slide.    

Mouthparts of a common housefly magnified at 450x. The coiled structures are typical of insects. I always thought this image looked surreal in a Dali-esque kind of way. Image obtained with a B&L microscope using darkfield illumination. Prepared, balsam mounted slide.

Some of my favorite images appear at first to be something they're not. I thought this looked reminiscent of some impressionist garden. Actually these are butterfly wing scales of a painted lady butterfly, magnification 450x. Image obtained with a B&L microscope using darkfield illumination.

This seemingly innocuous photomicrographic image takes on the form of a rosebud or, with some stretch of the imagination, a set of praying hands. This is a photograph of the anterior end of the fruit fly Drosophilus. Magnification 450x.  Image obtained with an antique B&L microscope using darkfield illumination. Prepared slide, balsam mounted.

Another in my flyscape series, this image shows the coiled structures of an insect's anatomy (a common housefly). I thought this image most resembles a Jackson Pollock painting. Image obtained with a Leitz Ortholux Pol microscope using darkfield illumination and polarizing filters. Magnification 500x.

This photomicrograph of a diatom (one of the smallest creatures on earth) illustrates the similarities of structure, small and large, that occur within the natural world. Compare and contrast the structure of this tiny organism to that of a sunflower. Any resemblance? Image obtained with a Leitz Ortholux microscope using darkfield illumination. Magnification about 1000x.  Orbiting "satellite" is a diatom fragment.

Elytron (the hardened wing casing common to most beetles) magnified at 500x. It's iridescent shell can make for an interesting aerial insect landscape. Each depression is roughly the diameter of a human hair. Polarized light brings out the unusual spectrum of colors. Image obtained with a Leitz Ortholux Pol microscope using vertical (reflected) illumination.

These ribbon-like structures are striated muscle fibres magnified at 750x. You can see the fibre bundles as thin horizontal lines throughout the image. Under polarized light, these ribbons take on the look of an alien landscape seen from above. Here is a glimpse of a world we seldom see. This one took some doing, as I had to minimize camera vibrations during a long exposure. Image obtained with a Leitz Ortholux microscope using darkfield illumination and polarizing filters. Prepared, balsam mounted slide.

Image obtained with an old B&L Microscope using darkfield illumination. Magnification 450x. 

Image obtained with B&L microscope using polarized illumination. Magnification 200x.