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One of my favorite moments of elementary-school science class was “microscope day,” a version of show-and-tell where kids brought in everyday objects to marvel at under the lens. I raided my family’s kitchen—salts, sugars, spices, chilies, peppercorns—while many others cut off tufts of aggrieved siblings’ hair. Someone brought a wriggling worm. Someone else simply picked from his nose in front of the microscope when it was his turn (our teacher let this proceed). Absolutely nothing looked like what we expected. The naked eye, I first learned on those days, was only one way of seeing the world.
My colleague Alan Taylor, who looks at hundreds, sometimes thousands, of photos a day to compile the photo essays you may already know and love, recently published a selection from the Nikon Small World 2025 photomicrography competition that took me all the way back to science class. These photographs show geometry and color; they are not what they seem.
Before clicking through to see the answers in the image captions, try guessing what each of the photos below is depicting:
See more photos from the competition here.
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P.S.
I recently asked readers to share a photo of something that sparks their sense of awe in the world. “I took this photo in 2011 of Tipsoo Lake, while hiking in Mt. Rainier National Park in Washington state,” Norma Johnson, from Northampton, Massachusetts, writes. “It still evokes the feelings I had when I came upon this small alpine lake … a true gem of nature. My hiking days are over (I am 90+) but the memory of that day is mine forever!”
I’ll continue to feature your responses in the coming weeks.
— Isabel Fattal
The post These Photographs Are Not What They Seem appeared first on The Atlantic.
