ADVANCES
18 Scientific American, June 2022Justin ZollPhotographer Justin Zoll shoots stunning
landscapes—without setting foot outside.
Instead he peers through a secondhand
Olympus BH2 microscope into a hidden
world of psychedelic crystal vistas.
Zoll has more than 15 years of pho-
tography experience, mostly capturing
weddings and concerts. Around six years
ago a friend introduced him to the world
of micrography. “I got hooked right
away,” Zoll recalls. He fell in love with a
trial-and-error process of combining sol-
vents and crystalline salts, creating aes-
thetically pleasing compositions too
small to be seen with the naked eye.
When the COVID pandemic struck and
his workaday event venues shut down,
he suddenly found himself with ample
time to experiment in his makeshift bed-
room lab. He ordered a plethora of pow-
dered substances online and busted out
a hot plate.
The vibrant colors in Zoll’s photographs
are the product of each crystal’s struc-
ture—not added by a computer. “If you
look through the microscope, this is
pretty much exactly what you see,” he
says, although he does take multiple shots
of each slide to create a panoramic effect.
The amino acids l-glutamate and beta-
alanine, combined to form this tableau, are
both produced in the body and are com-
monly sold as supplements for athletes and
body builders. To create this type of image,
Zoll dissolves the compounds—typically in
high-proof vodka—and dries the mixture,
with or without heat. The aquamarine and
gold colors on display here are relatively
rare for amino acid crystals, he says.
Zoll does not have a background in
chemistry or physics, but he harbors
a deep appreciation for the beauty sci-
ence can illuminate. “Simple math creates
similar structures, from the cosmic down
to what I’m looking at in my bedroom
under a microscope,” he says. “I think
that’s really cool. And I think it’s important
for us to share that perspective.”
C H E M I S T R YScience
in Images
By Joanna Thompson
To see more, visit scientificamerican.com/science-in-images