I came across the website of Dr. Gary Greenberg (Sandgrains.com), who is both a photographer and a scientist. His passion for photography was defined when he first saw the image of the Earth that was taken from the moon, which made him realize that perspective plays such a huge role in the way people see the world.
This guided him to explore the everyday things we take for granted like sand and flowers, and through the use of his photography, he is able to reveal amazing worlds that usually go unnoticed. From an artistic perspective, the photos he has taken with his special microscopes and cameras are beautiful and pleasing to the eye. From a scientific perspective, the reveal the world in a new way, that can help us understand it better.
The photos he has taken of sand from around the world reveal the history of each area and how that sand came to be. Its make up can contain micro shells and other biological materials like the sand he looked at in Hawaii. They can show the end result of weathering and erosion on the mainland where the sand is made up of tiny pieces of the minerals that make up an area. Dr. Greenberg's photos can even reveal the mysteries of how the ultra-fine sand of the moon was created.
Dr. Greenberg talks about all of these things in his TED Talk, and his website also contains galleries of the images he has captured. He used a special microscope that allows his to capture images from various focus points, which are then assembled with computer software to create detailed images that can show things the naked eye cannot reveal. It is well worth the 13 minutes!
