microscopicphotography

Nikon has announced the winners of its 47th annual Small World Photomicrography Competition. This year’s first-place prize was awarded to Jason Kirk for his striking image of a southern live oak leaf’s trichomes, stomata, and vessels.

The thing about nature is that, if you look close enough at just about anything, you're bound to find a beauty and symmetry that defies description. In the case of Linden Gledhill's microscope photos of butterfly wings, he simply discovered another level of beauty in something that already captures many of our imaginations.

This is just plain beautiful, no matter which way you slice it. Using the magic of time-lapse photography and microscopy, Vyacheslav Ivanov captured the formation of those ice crystals we call snowflakes that caused so much grief in the northeastern US over the past several weeks.

Next time you're at the beach, forget about the sunset or the crashing waves or the light that's reflecting off of the water just so; if you want an amazing photo opportunity, all you have to do is look down at the stuff between your toes.

We're talking, of course, about sand. And if you're thinking that sand isn't exactly photogenic we have a feeling your opinions will change once you feast your eyes on what Dr. Gary Greenberg saw when he put sand grains under the microscope.