Microsculpture by Levon Biss (+ My Insect Photography Exhibition)

Microsculpture by Levon Biss (+ My Insect Photography Exhibition)

Fri 12 May – Mon 27 Nov 2023

British Library

12.06.2023

* NOTE: My amateur shots above. All images are copyrighted, but please ask if you want permission to share.

In the time when I had leisure at my command, I spent many happy moments in my garden photographing the microbeasts. I would scour the grass and the leaves, upturn the stones, scrutinise the spider’s webs, look in every nook and cranny. And there! I would find it, a beautiful little minibeast. The camera dangling around my neck would be de-lidded, I would focus the shot several times before I got one good image and I would try out several different angles to try and get the best shot. It would take a good while, the camera would shake because I was focusing on something so tiny, the shooting was basically impossible when the critters were moving around, and I had to take a good many steps to the side before I could get the insect out of the shade for a good, lighted image.

I worked with cheap apparatus (not the cheapest, but fairly close to it). My parents had bought me an entry level digital camera that was on sale as a present and I attached magnifying lens filters to the standard lens. This was the cheapest option instead of paying several hundred pounds for a macro lens. Even the activity itself was cheap – aside from a battery charge, it was basically free (an important consideration for why I did it – I was studying my PhD – which included an analysis of fictional representations of photography – at the time). Even the photo editing was done on free software (at first).

It was with some curiosity as to how a professional approached the task that I went down to the ‘Microsculpture’ exhibit at the British Library (one of my favourite places in the whole world, it must be said, as a bibliophile and a researcher). Levon Biss used the focus stacking technique in which you take multiple photographs from different angles and combine them together in an image that gives consistent depth of field over the whole shot. The results are nothing short of miraculous and awe-inspiring. Yet, for me, the amateur, there was always the thought: it was because he had more money, technology and resources than me that he could produce these photographic masterpieces.

The insects are set against a black background. They glisten like petrol, as though they were doused in the stuff. They are incredibly colourful and one wonders at their ‘fearful symmetry’.

The advances in technology have provided the conditions for these striking images. Biss was able to take thousands of photographs to combine together to give the perfect focus over every aspect of the form of the minibeasts. And there was the wonderful microscope that he had been using as well. All the painstaking labour that it would have taken to get each individual shot and then combine everything was all digitised and done relatively speedily. There was also a massive scientific endeavour which allowed Biss to retrieve such beautiful specimens from the insect archive. Although the exhibition bears his name, there are so many people involved in this contemporary process of photography: scientists, archivists, inventors, businessmen… I’m sure I’m not doing much justice to the list.

What were my impressions of the specimens? I am a lover of nature. I am also a lover of design. The specimens were almost presented like samples of design and this is the intent of the exhibition which emphasises them as microsculpture: a focus on the evolutionary adaptations of the bodies of the insects. There was a cross-fertilisation between product photography and nature photography. I liked the results, but I wonder how less scientific people would think of presenting living bodies as pure function. For me, the functional aspects contribute to the beauty seen. But I believe that we are just bodies and nothing more, machines that think based on the arrangement of matter of which we are composed.

The Western mindset is different to my Indian mindset. The West sees things and bodies as discrete objects. Hence, there is the insect against the black background, a solitary individual. I, the Indian, see things in their context. This is why I photographed in the garden, with real backgrounds. The presentation of the discrete, individualised insect is a reflection of a culture that values ‘independence’ (which is impossible, since we live in a network of dependency and relations). The exhibition is asking us to identify with these creatures as isolated and atomised (dead) objects: a reflection on this contemporary world.

My overall impression of the exhibition is the pure love of the crystal sharp, enhanced, blown up image that I was not able to produce. As an amateur that worked for free for my own amusement, I was nowhere near these productions. They are the result of massive investment, many hands, cutting edge technology. They are an inspiration. But in the history of photography, they are the work of a tiny minority. Us amateurs still rule. And, compared with my own humble shots, these highly finished and sharp images lack something in their presentation of a perfect, direct, ‘straight’ shot. They lack the element of chance, imperfection, technological limitation. Those ingredients created shots with more character and more drama, to my mind (I am talking about photographs that are my memories, my babies, my loved ones, over whom I am possessive). If the exhibition is science, if the exhibition is for the animal lover, the direct vision is what is wanted (let us not pretend it is objective and unmediated however. Selection and arrangement and angle all play their part). If the exhibition is seen as a demonstration of skill rather than technical proficiency, I would query whether it was really better than my potterings about in my back garden with basic equipment. But this, of course, is purely subjective: envious, of course. It is a good, pioneering exhibition and I would like to buy the book.