Magnified Art

by Rob Titus

An infant’s smile, a glimmering Porsche and a breathtaking horizon are all considered visually pleasing, in their own right. Beauty is characterized in a wide variety of ways. Photographers around the globe, in pursuit of thought-provoking and unconventional beauty, are focusing their lenses on a world too tiny for pedestrian viewing. The world is the one seen and photographed through a microscope.

Toronto photographer Aina Tilups has made it a point to magnify nature’s splendour. She is certainly not alone. The internet is brimming with amateur and professional attempts at what is called photomicroscopy: photography through a microscopes lens.

Tilups is employed as a research technologist at a Toronto hospital. She and her colleagues operate the hospital’s electron microscopes and capture images using an attached camera. Specimens such as blood cells are positioned in the microscope and the magnification levels are set. When the focus is right, the photograph is taken.

She says colleagues look at her curiously when her eyes light up examining a microscope’s ocular. “Even though science is a very creative discipline, the scientists for whom we are taking the images seem to have blinders on and are focused on their research results.

“I would be so excited how beautiful it was and they would look at me like I had two heads. They could see the science, (but) not always the beauty of it too until it was pointed out to them.” The photographer in her was compelled to reveal this “hidden world” and, ultimately, she captured and manipulated her own magnifications.

A plant anatomy professor at the University of Guelph, Dr. Larry Peterson was Tilups’ biggest source of inspiration. She says she found his excitement contagious.

Tilups enrolled soon thereafter in a “bizarre” course called Plant Micro-techniques, taught by Dr. Peterson. Formally introduced to the electron microscopes and darkroom printing via plant life, Tilups was on her way.

While technical, the course appealed to the photographer’s artistic side. She deemed the operation and manipulation of microscopes as an ideal career. She has since created an entire collection of work by combining further electron microscope training with an artistic eye.

Tilups has exhibited her work, most recently last September, in Toronto. Her exhibits, while small in stature, have gone well, encouraging her to take her photographic art even further. Now she is working on another project: printing images on fibre paper and doing reproduction “Giclee” prints. She hopes to show her new work later this year.

The combination of photography equipment and “light microscopes” is a growing phenomenon. A number of photographers with varying levels of skill are letting their imaginations run wild and sharing their results. “Light microscopes will work, but EMs (electron microscopes) get the best results,” insists Tilups.

Christine Glade, who had already been posting photography online, has just recently been introduced to photomicroscopy. Glade was shocked to receive a trinocular microscope outfitted with a Nikon digital camera as a Christmas gift. She’s been using it as her “scope” daily, and has been frequently sharing her work.

“Larger than life, insects become what science fiction movie monsters and nightmares are made of,” says Glade, whose artistic focus has always been aimed towards life’s “tiny, even mundane” details. “The wing of a wasp takes on the iridescence of a rainbow, and a fly’s thousands of eyes are startling in their usefulness and design.”

Not unlike Tilups, Glade’s creative tilt is not limited to photomicroscopy. Her website, postmarkarts.com, however, overflows with magnified insects.

“Without a microscope it is nearly impossible to truly explore the intricacies of such miniscule grotesque beauty. But with magnification, there’s a whole new aspect of intimacy and understanding of a world that seems so foreign from ours.”

Access to a microscope and camera affords anyone an introduction to the often overlooked beauty prominent throughout the world below the ankles. Science and astronomy stores market inspection microscopes at relatively reasonable prices. Of course, the saying “you get what you pay for” is not mere words here. The magnification levels of most “affordable” binocular microscopes are not much higher than the average magnifying glass.

Glade’s says her trinocular microscope set her gift-giver back at least one thousand dollars, and that’s nowhere near the top of the line. Tulips says electron microscopes can cost “hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Make no mistake, however; spectacular results demand both a quality microscope and existing photography experience. Prior to embracing photomicroscopy, Tilups and Glade both had pre-existing photography skill-sets. In fact, Tilups’ attempt at “abstract nature photomicroscopy” was the direct result of previous experience with various forms of photography. Abstract photography had already appealed to her and she considered it, an all too natural progression.