Levon Biss - Microsculpture

29 June - 10 November, 2019

In the exhibition at Inverleith House, we see 26 of Biss’s total 37 photographs of specimens from the Oxford Museum of Natural History’s ‘internationally important insect collection’.

Biss uses a 36-megapixel camera, which has a 10x microscope objective attached to it via a 200mm prime lens. After posing and positioning the selected insect on an adapted microscope stage, Biss then takes around 8000 photographs of the insect, across approximately 30 different sections. Each of the sections is lit individually to best highlight its microsculpture, be that of an antenna, an eye, or a wing. As the microscopic lens only offers a tiny area of focus, Biss must take many photographs for each section. He then flattens these images into a single picture through various photo-stacking processes, until he has one fully focused section. He then brings together the 30 sections to create a final image. This whole process, to gain one image of an insect, takes approximately 4 weeks.

Levon Biss, Jewel Longhorn Beetle.

Levon Biss, Orchid Cuckoo Beetle.

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