For over 70 years, photographer and zoology graduate Spike Walker has been fascinated with the worlds too small to see with the naked eye.
As a 12-year-old in 1945, Spike pursued his love of both science and photography by purchasing his first microscope. Sixteen years later, in 1961, he was awarded the Royal Society Award for Scientific Research for his extensive work on work of living freshwater protozoa and algae. This year, the Royal Photographic Society has presented Walker with the Scientific Imaging Award, an accolade given to an "individual for a body of scientific imaging which promotes public knowledge and understanding."
Here are a few of Spike Walker’s most captivating images:
1. The origins of every person on Earth, caught in a single picture.
2. The psychedelic crystalized forms of vitamin C.
3. These beautifully terrifying mouth parts of a water spider.
4. Sugar crystals appearing like a surreal scene under a night sky.
5. The intricate mosaic found on the legs of a great diving beetle.
6. The mammoth features of a magnified wingless fly parasite.
7. The infinite complexity of human neurons found in the medulla oblongata.
8. This incredibly fascinating cross-section of a mouse fetus.
9. A dandelion, magnified to reveal its beautiful individual florets.
10. The delicate arrangement of sensory nerve fibers around base of a cat's hair follicle.
11. Tiny marine plankton larvae magnified into monstrous creatures.
12. A single delicate seed from a red valerian plant.
13. The perfect symmetry of a one-celled freshwater algae dividing into two.
14. The cascading structures of a magnified amino acid.
15. A feeding frenzy of bacteria and ciliate protozoa — all occurring within the water of a flower vase.
16. The mesmerizing fractals of oxidized vitamin C.
17. And this remarkable cross-section of a human artery and the blood pumping through it.
