Martin Oeggerli / Micronaut.ch
Behind the imagesUnlike pictures captured with a camera, SEM scans are based on particle emission rather than light -- they don’t show colors and patterns.
By adding layers of color and shadows, Swiss photographer Martin Oeggerli, whose work has appeared in National Geographic, literally "paints the light" in these images.
“Certainly, most of my works are inspired by science. But to be finally enjoyed as 3D-realistic artworks of the invisible, the originally black and white electron microscopy scans have to be painted with color,” he says.
In this illustration of the process, the original SEM image of a wasp eye is shown at bottom right. Oeggerli's colorful |