This project came about by accident when I brought out my old microscope I've had since I was young. While looking at samples of bug wings, I found that one of the glass slides had gotten crushed in the box, so I put it under the lens to see how the light would interact with the tiny cracks. Intruiged by the initial results, I was interested to see what I could do with a little more color, so I got a CD and angled it different ways until these mosaics emerged.

At such a small scale, the prism effect of the CD that splits white light into its separate frequencies is amplified even though the CD itself is very close to the glass, meaning in some cases you can see the entire color spectrum with great detail in an area that's around 1/4-1/8 of a square inch.

When I was taking these photos I just thought the colors looked nice, but later I began to see a person. I called this set of photos The Archer because I see a person shooting a bow and arrow, though my friend saw a person riding a dragon and you may see something entirely different.

The microscope is in storage now and I won't be able to use it again for a while, but I'd like to make a bigger (smaller?) art project with this idea eventually. There's a certain charm in finding and creating beauty in the very very little things.