If you had told me a few minutes ago that a grain of sand was awesome, I probably would have told you to stop bothering me and leave me alone. But then I saw these pictures and all I can say is wow (and also that I don’t really understand how any of this stuff could actually exist inside something so tiny) because grains of sand look awesome and have all kind of cool shit going on in them.
These photographs are the work of a guy called Dr Gary Greenberg, who has dedicated his life to the pursuit of microphotography, with the intention of revealing the secret beauty of nature. With the help of high-quality microscopes, he creates ‘spectacular landscapes of worlds beyond our everyday perception – worlds where reality is seen as abstract form and color, motion and texture’.
The grains of sand in this article are taken from beaches all over the world reaching from Okinawa, Japan to Maui, Hawaii to Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia. The grains of sand are magnified up to 300 times their normal size allowing swirling microscopic shells, eroded crystals and colorful coral fragments to be exposed.
Much like snowflakes, no two grains of sand are the same so Dr Greenberg’s work will never be completed – he intends to photograph as many as possible during his life.
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