Bernardo Cesare Bernardo Cesare Bernardo Cesare Bernardo Cesare Bernardo Cesare Bernardo Cesare

Bernardo Cesare

Rocks, plastics and crystals—who would have thought they would look so brilliant?! In his works, Bernardo Cesare takes transparent, thinly sliced materials (and we’re taking very thin, about 0.03 mm) and then photographs them through an optical microscope using transmitted polarized light. And this is really what they look like! As Cesare describes,

The technique doesn’t include any manipulation during or after shooting: the variety and tones ofinterference colours are the results of the natural propagation of polarized light into minerals, and of the use of the accessory “λ“ compensator.”

Cesare creates this works as an artistic extension of his research as a Professor of Petrology at the Department of Geosciences in the University of Padova, Italy. His scientific interests include metamorphism and melting of rocks, mineralogy, and the study of inclusions in minerals. He uses photography to describe his studies and their  features. For more on Cesare’s work, click here. 

- Lee Jones