Claire uses everyday substances found around the house to create beautiful images.
She mixes and dries the solutions on glass slides, often 20 at a time, which are then viewed under the microscope at x40 magnification.
Polarisers are applied between the slide and the microscope to create the colours you see. Until that point, she has no idea if she will find a usable image and what it will look like.
The orientation of the polarisers, and the different substances used, influence what the final image will look like, which is why there is so much variation in the images produced.
Claire uses a mounted camera to capture the images directly onto her laptop. This produces hundreds of images which have to be individually viewed to find the very best image to use.
Due to the small focal field of the microscope, multiple photos are taken of the same image. This can range from 4-20 images which are then stacked on top of each other to form a composite image.
Finally, the nature of Claire’s work depends on the successful formation of crystals so any debris and dust marks which have formed have to be manually removed from each image which can be a time consuming task.
The whole process from start to finish can take up to three weeks.
As a result, each image is unique and can never be replicated again.
