Name: Wim van Egmond
Address: ad

Portraying micro life

Ever since I was a kid I was interested in worlds that could not normally be seen. My grandfather was into palaeontology and I loved his books full of strange life forms. When I grew up I was not sure if I wanted to become an artist or a scientist. Later I found out it was possible to work in-between art and science.

I became a ‘micro-photographer' and my aim was to portray microbes and other inconspicuous life forms. I had studied painting and photography at art school in Rotterdam and the advantage of portraying microorganisms was that they almost look like abstract artworks. I could be a pure realist and pretend to make abstract art. Another good thing was that I didn't have to explain about the artistic aspects of my work. All I had to do was talk about microbes. They are the main characters. I am just there to put them in the spot lights.

Why microbes?

When you look around you you see mostly people, they are everywhere. On radio and tv, the web, all you see and hear is people (and cats). This may give the impression that humans (and cats) are the most important beings on our planet. They are not.

If I would have to choose the key organisms on earth it would be the cyanobacteria. They had the most impact on the looks of our planet. They invented photosynthesis. Without them there would be no oxygen in our atmosphere, no chloroplasts in algae, plants and trees.

If you would ask me which group of micro-organisms is my favourite it would be impossible for me to choose. There are so many wonderful groups. The hairy ciliates with their amazing behaviour. The enigmatic shape-shifting amoebes. The beautiful desmids and diatoms. The belly dancing euglenas. Or rotifers, the smallest of animals, micro engineering developed to perfection. And what about plankton organisms? Fortunately I don't have to choose. I'm not a specialist, I like to collect them all.

Marine diatoms, Chaetoceros debilis | 1st price Nikon Small World competition 2013

Conjugating ciliates | Nassula ornata

the Rotifer Testudinella | 3d price Nikon Small World competition 2007

Desmid | Micrasterias brachyptera

Copepod

Cyanobacteria | Microcystis

Glassworks

The fact that microorganisms are tiny doesn’t mean they are simple.

Take for example diatoms. Their bodies have a size of a fraction of a millimeter, the largest are barely visible with the naked eye. An alga, living a plant-like life retrieving its energy from sunlight. Yet they are the master architects of nature. Diatoms build glass-like houses of silica decorated with fine patterns of punctures, ridges and spines. Making prepared micro-slides of diatoms is an old Victorian craft. I must admit that I've never made my own diatom slides. It is nice to photograph prepared diatoms but it is much more fun to photograph them alive. There is another group of micro-organisms that also make 'glass houses', the radiolaria. When I make micro slides of radiolaria I use a cat’s whisker to place the 1/20th of a millimeter shells on a slide and mount them permanently in Canada Balsam, a natural resin.

Beagle: In Darwin's wake

In 2009 VPRO television created a tv series called 'Beagle: In het kielzog van Darwin' (English: Beagle: In Darwin's wake) to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. They retravelled the HMS Beagle voyage of Charles Darwin with a clipper, the Stad Amsterdam.

I was invited to join the first stretch of the journey, from Plymouth to Tenerife. My task was to capture marine plankton. It was an amazing journey. Nothing is more impressive than travelling with a tallship. But working on such a ship wasn't easy. Everything was moving, also the samples under the microscope. Capturing the samples was also very hard. Because of the speed of the ship the plankton-net that I use skipped on the surface. The solution was to use a bucket and pour the water through the plankton-net on deck. It was worth the effort. I was familiar with marine plankton but the only coastal plankton. The inhabitants of the open ocean are completely different. I found organisms I'd never seen before and will probably never see again.

Beagle: In Darwin's wake | Plankton fishing — **Beagle: In Darwin's wake** | Plankton fishing

Copepod

The only living radiolarian I ever caught

Dinoflagellates

Bioluminescent dinoflagellates | Pyrocystis noctiluca

Hyperiid amphipod | Hyperia sp

Pteropod | Atlanta sp.

Micro Landscapes

I've always considered myself a portrait artist. But gradually I started to explore landscape imaging. By combining focus layers it is possible to create images and movies with extreme detail and infinite focus. Because of this we lose our sense of scale. In extreme close up the colonies of fungi become strange tapestries or huge forests. We can roam these microscopic fungal landscapes as explorers of an unknown world, a habitat that is actually not more than a bit of dark mould in a corner of the wall of our kitchen.

Micro Landscape | Aspergillus niger

Myxomycetes | Micro Landscape

Cyanobacteria bloom

Dung canon fungus | Pilobolus crystallinus

Landscape on Bread

Fungi movies

Time-lapse techniques combined with high magnifications can be used to explore hidden lifeforms. Ordinary subjects that are often overlooked suddenly become more than what you would expect.

I've always preferred observing organisms that move at the same speed as we do, or faster, like most microbes. So I never had that much interest in plants, fungi or other motionless subjects. But after I started making time-lapse movies to speed up their activities they suddenly came to life. I became a fungi admirer. Everybody knows mushrooms but the actual organism is usually hidden from view. The fungus body has the shape of microscopically thin threads. The most important fungus for humans is even simpler. Yeast is a fungal microbe that is not more than a bacterium-sized globule. What would life be without yeast? Very sober indeed.

Fungi on Nectarine, time-lapse

Penicilllium vulpinum, time-lapse

Aspergillus niger | focus stack time-lapse

Penicillium chrysogenum, source of antibiotics | time-lapse

Soil Life

The past 10 years I have been working on time-lapses of soil organisms. It's a joined project with prof.dr.ir. Gerlinde de Deyn from Wageningen University & Research (WUR). I've made many installations for capturing life underground.

The activities of organisms that normally remain in the dark can be seen at

Soil Life in Action on vimeo.