Nitella

The day started well, with an early morning walk along the river, though when I arrived I realised that, in the rush to get out, I'd forgotten to put in my SD card again, and the spare was also on my desk! No matter, as there wasn't anything I haven't photagraphed before, so I just enjoyed the walk without any pressure to look for photographic opportunities.

The rest of the morning was divided between a visit to Sainsbury's and trying to get a photograph of yesterday's stonewort that I could use in a talk I'm giving in March. I then packed the the specimen carefully and posted it to another photographer who's an expert in photomicrography and also produces amazing 3D images of stoneworts.

I tried several methods of producing an image - using a ring-flash (not bad in terms of detail, but hard to avoid burnt-out reflections of the water), natural light with a tripd (most realistic but not really showing enough detail) and photographing the specimen on a lightbox. This latter method proved quite effective, and enables the shapes of the cells to be see, as well as other details such as the reproductive structures. You can even see a strat strand of filamentous alga!

I was planning to get some other photographs to use for blipping, but the afternoon was spent cooking, in preparation for an evening barbecue and our last trip to Chatsworth tomorrow and Monday. Time slipped away and by the time I remembered about a blip the light and my enthusiasm had gone. So today my technical photograph has to suffice!