David Maitland's Image

Watching one set of spicules after another come into focus under the microscope was, says David, ‘like drifting through a magical galaxy’.

Spicules are the calcareous skeletal remains of tiny, soft-bodied marine invertebrates such as sea fans and sea whips (corals), sea cucumbers and sponges. These spicules, no bigger than grains of salt, accumulate on the seabed and wash up as sand, often turning beaches gleaming white. David attached his camera to a microscope to photograph an old sample on a Victorian slide. ‘I wanted an image that would reveal the diversity and architectural beauty of the remains.’ The technical challenge was to get a perfect plane of focus. ‘I spent ages making tiny adjustments, to get the right 3D effect,’ he explains.