Mind-blowing, magnified portraits of insects | Levon Biss

So, I had been a photographer

for 18 years

before I began the Microsculpture Project.

And in that time, I had shot global ad campaigns,

I had the opportunity to photograph some of my generation's icons,

and I was traveling the world.

I got to a point in my career that I dreamed of getting to,

and yet, for some reason, I still felt a little bit unfulfilled.

Despite the extraordinary things I was shooting and experiencing,

they'd started to feel a little bit ordinary to me.

I was also getting concerned

about how disposable photography had started to feel in the digital world,

and I really wanted to produce images that had a sense of worth again.

And I needed a subject that felt extraordinary.

Sometimes I wish I had the eyes of a child.

And by that I mean, I wish I could look at the world

in the same as I did when I was a small boy.

I think there is a danger, as we get older,

that our curiosity becomes slightly muted or dulled by familiarity.

And as a visual creator, one of the challenges for me

is to present the familiar in a new and engaging way.

Fortunately for me, though, I've got two great kids

who are still curious about the world.

Sebastian -- he's still curious about the world, and in 2014, in spring,

he brought in a ground beetle from the garden.

There was nothing particularly special about this insect --

you know, it was a common species.

But he was still curious,

and he brought it up to my office,

and we decided to look at it under his microscope.

He had a little science kit for Christmas.

And this is what we saw.

Now, when I first saw this, it blew me away.

Up here -- this is the back of the ground beetle.

When I first saw it, it reminded me of a galaxy.

And all the time, this had just been outside our window.

You know, I was looking for this extraordinary subject,

and it took Seb's eyes and curiosity to bring it in to me.

So I decided to photograph it for him, and this is what I produced.

I basically asked myself two simple questions.

The first one:

Could I take all my knowledge and skill of photographic lighting

and take that onto a subject that's five millimeters long?

But also: Could I keep creative control over that lighting

on a subject that size?

So I practiced on some other found specimens,

and I approached the Oxford University Museum of Natural History

to see if I could have access to their collection,

to progress the project.

And I went up there for a meeting,

and I showed them some of the images that I'd been shooting,

and they could see the kind of detail I was able to get.

I don't think they'd ever really seen anything quite like it before,

and from that point forward, they gave me open access

to their entire collection

and the assistance of Dr. James Hogan, their entomologist.

Now, over the next two-and-a-half years,

I shot 37 insects from their collection.

And the way I work

is that I essentially split the insect up into multiple sections,

and I treat each one of those sections like a small still life.

So for example, if I was photographing the eye of the insect,

which is normally quite smooth and dome-shaped,

then I'd use a light source that is large and soft and diffuse,

so I don't get any harsh hot spots on that surface.

But once my attention turns over to a hairy leg,

that lighting setup will change completely.

And so I make that one tiny section look as beautiful as I possibly can,

and I work my way across the insect

until I have about 20 or 25 different sections.

The issue with photography at high magnification

is that there is inherently a very shallow depth of field.

So to get around that, what I do is,

I put my camera on a rail

that I can automate to move 10 microns in between each shot.

That's about one-seventh the width of a human hair.

And then that provides me with a deep stack of images.

Each has a tiny sliver of focus all the way through.

And I can squash that down

to produce one image that is fully focused from front to back.

So essentially, that gives me 25 sections that are fully focused

and beautifully lit.

Now, each one of my images

is made up of anywhere between 8- and 10,000 separate shots.

They take about three-and-a-half weeks to create,

and the file sizes on average are about four gigabytes.

So I've got plenty of information to play with when I'm printing.

And the prints at the exhibition are around the three-meter mark.

In fact, I had a show in Milan two weeks ago,

and we had some prints there that were nine meters long.

But, you know, I realize

that these images still have to work in the digital world.

There's no point in me putting all my blood, sweat and tears

into these pictures

if they're only going to be showing 500 pixels on a screen.

So with the help of Rob Chandler and Will Cookson,

we developed a website

that enables the viewer to immerse themselves

into the full four-gigabyte files,

and they can explore all that microscopic detail.

So if you have the time, and I encourage you,

please visit microsculpture.net

and go and have a play.

It's good fun.

I first showed the work at Oxford,

and since then, it's moved on to the Middle East.

It's now back in Europe and goes to Copenhagen this month.

And the feedback has been great.

You know, I get emails, actually, from all over the world --

from teachers, at the moment, who are using the website in school.

The kids are using them on the tablet.

They're zooming into the pictures

and using it for art class, biology class.

And that's not something I planned.

That's just a beautiful offshoot of the project.

In fact, one of the things I like to do at the exhibitions

is actually look at the kiddies' reactions.

And, you know, standing in front of a three-meter insect,

they could have been horrified.

But they're not. They look in wonder.

This little chap here, he stood there for five minutes, motionless.

(Laughter)

And at the end of the day, actually, at the end of the day at the exhibitions,

we have to wipe down the lower third of the big prints --

(Laughter)

just to remove all those sticky handprints,

because all they want to do is touch those big bugs.

I do want to leave you with one final image, if that's OK.

This has to do with Charles Darwin.

One of the recent images that I photographed

was this one here.

I'm talking about the creature in the box, not my cat.

And this is a shield bug

that Charles Darwin brought back from Australia

on the HMS Beagle in 1836.

And when I got it home,

I stood in my kitchen and stared at it for about 20 minutes.

I couldn't believe I was in possession of this beautiful creature.

And at that moment, I kind of realized

that this validated the project for me.

The fact that the museum was willing to risk me playing with this

kind of showed me that my images had worth --

you know, they weren't disposable.

That's the image that I produced.

I often wonder, still, when I look at this:

What would Charles Darwin make of these images?

Do you think he'd like his picture of his shield bug? I hope so.

So --

(Applause)

You know, I think it's strange in a way.

I'm a visual person, I'm a creative person,

but I still needed the eyes of a child to find my extraordinary subject.

That's the way it was.

So all I can say is, thank you very much, Sebastian;

I am very, very grateful.

Thank you.

(Applause)