SMALL WORLD, BEAUTIFUL LIFE
The videos are mesmerizing, brightly hypnotic. Looking like a firework in reverse, a revolt of green dots speed to convene at a central point. Glowing blue lights race along crisscrossing abstract red tracks. A large patch of violet light oozes languidly, sensually.
They are gorgeous abstract short films of scenes that are playing over and over again inside of all of us.
To celebrate nearly four decades of images captured by light microscopy, Nikon began its Small World photomicrography contest. The contest invites photographers to capture the beauty and complexity of the tiny, all-but-invisible worlds thriving around and inside us. The first place winner, Dr. Olena Kamenyeva, chose to photograph, “The recruitment of neutrophils to the site of laser damage in mouse inguinal lymph node.” Simply put, the darting lights show how a living body senses danger.
Nikon is currently accepting submission to the 2013 Small Worlds contest. For more details, visit nikonsmallworld.com.