Danny Sanchez photographs the microscopic interiors of gems:
For all the infinite vastness of the universe we’ve seen through telescopes, the world seen under a microscope also reveals some pretty alien-looking vistas. Like the tiny cosmos hidden inside gemstones, a realm that photomicrographer Danny Sanchez captures in striking photographs.
“When I first started looking through the microscope at gemstones, it was all space to me,” says Sanchez, who’s spent the last eight years learning to examine and photograph gemological interiors. “It was all the limitless imagination of outer space.”
Sanchez’s images reflect an awe for the cosmos, and the aesthetic influence of science fiction. Shattered remnants of a doomed planet emerge from microscopic rutile embedded in sapphire; the pyramidal pyrite shell of some ancient being drifts in geological time; a mountainous horizon hidden in a nugget of quartz looks absolutely extraterrestrial. The photos recall sci-fi visionary John Berkey.
See more of Sanchez’s work, which is for sale, here.
(Photo: “Dolomite in quartz (1). Field of view = 5.2mm”)
The Dish 