The Blue Notebook

This fall I’ve been continuing with a little project I started last year: putting plants and parts of plants in the scanner and seeing what comes out. Leaves changing color are particularly satisfying; when I cut out the background they take on a 3D effect, to the point where someone visitng once went up to touch the picture, thinking I’d just pasted the leaf on there. (Here’s the view from my window with the witch hazel tree in the middle distance just starting to turn.) It’s a simple image, but one I haven’t gotten tired of studying yet.

Thought I’d post another teaser for my eventual full report on this summer’s weekend at the beach with microscope and plankton net.

This little beastie is at least clearly identifiable. An amphipod like this is actually visible to the naked eye, and fills the entire field of view at 40x magnification. Although I don’t think this is one, the most familiar amphipod is the so-called sand flea or sand hopper.

In a box of prepared slides from La Bonita’s second-grade classroom, I found this stained cross-section of a woody plant stem. I’ve got an 8×12 of it taped to the wall above my computer, and like to contemplate the complexities whenever Ergonomix kicks me off the keyboard.

Almost a month since I’ve posted here, hard to believe it. Well, I did have a nice little contract to keep me busy week before last, with last week to recover. Tonight I worked some on the images from my improptu research project in August, which involved a home-made plankton net, an $80 microscope from the Discovery Store, and a Canon PowerShot S70. Oh and don’t forget A Guide To Marine Coastal Plankton and Marine Invertebrate Larvae, by DeBoyd L. Smith and Kevin B. Johnson.

My certainty level as to the identity of the critters I was able to photograph is definitely in the low range, but then my guide book has a lot of “unknown X,” where X is the probable family or genus. So I don’t feel so bad. This one’s probably a diatom, although it could be one of the annelids. I love the delicacy and grace of the cilia coming off the sides.

It was hard to decide which one to post as a preview. Guess I’ll just have to get my PhotoPress installation up and running sooner rather than later, so they can all be on view.