Abstract nominee

This work is part of an ongoing photographic project, begun during the Covid restrictions. My housebound goal, finding something interesting to photograph. At that time, I was given a microscope. This serendipitously saw me delve into microscopy, buying several more. With these I discovered a world of beautiful shapes and patterns in crystals made from household chemicals. Photographed on my 1970 Leitz Orthoplan polarising microscope.

The subjects, only millimetres in dimension are all physical things. Their permutation of shapes and colours come from the angle I have chosen for the polarising filters. A wave plate causes the explosion of colour. The scenes photographed are discovered through a process of visually scanning through countless microscope slides.

Attaching my modern Sony camera to my 53 year old microscope has allowed me to go beyond macro, into the world of photomicrography, capturing a set of beautiful and captivating scenes of shape and colour.

The son of two artists (painters), Bevil Templeton-Smith has been avidly pursuing photography as a creative and artistic outlet to counter his technical IT job as an IT consultant and programmer. Always striving to find subjects that are difficult to capture, either through requiring complex equipment, or finding the most challenging of setups has led through many photographic forays (extreme macro, astrophotography, ultra wide, ultra high resolution etc..). Most recently, pointing his camera down a vintage 50 year old microscope, Bevil has found beauty and explosions of colour and abstract form in the photography of microscopic crystals of everyday substances in polarised light.

16 large printed works included in successful joint exhibition titled Polychromo at Alveston Fine Art in London, March 2023.

Non Professional Fine Art Photographer of the year 2023 (International Photography Awards), and as a result, currently a finalist for Discovery of the Year at the Lucie awards (announcement at Carnegie Hall on October 30th 2023).