For Chris Perani, the tiniest details—those barely visible to the naked eye—are a source of endless wonder. His ongoing series, wingfocuses on the prismatic effect of insect anatomy, which he calls “extreme macroscopicity.” The images reveal details we can only clearly see under a microscope, and the meticulous process illuminates undulating, scaly surfaces that resemble colored pixels, stained glass, or even beadwork.
Perani used special lenses to magnify objects 10 times, but he also took up to 2,000 carefully measured photos of each sample. He then digitally stacks them to achieve incredible clarity and dimension. Each high-resolution image is captured at intervals of 10 microns (a distance shorter than the width of a human hair), so precision is critical.
The organic structure of bee wings, combined with those of wasps, damselflies, beetles, and butterflies, illustrates the precision of their anatomy and the way pigmentation and structural color (such as iridescence) create prisms of color.
“For many insects, light completely changes the outcome,” Perani said. “For example, bee wings usually appear black and colorless at first glance. But when light hits them at just the right angle, thin-film interference suddenly reveals extraordinary colors, textures and intricate structures on the wing surface, turning what initially appears to be dark into a delicate fabric of light and structure.”
See more on Perani’s Instagram.
