The Photography of David Maisel–One Shot Wednesday

Image by ssoosay via Flickr

The Photography of David Maisel

Microscopic photos of
blood samples, or so you suppose.
Red corpuscles, lymphocytes,
a few eosinophils,

macrophages swallowing
who-knows-what,
alizarin crimson slides
beneath a lens.

Deceptive art, Maisel,
aerial photographer of
Great Salt Lake.
Pollution, masquerade.

David Maisel is an aerial photographer from California. His work often highlights environmental concerns, such as the pollution of the Great Salt Lake in Utah or Owens Lake in Central California. Viewed at a distance, it is easy to see it as a piece of abstract art. Microscopically, you might think of it as a cross-section of a slide of tissue or blood samples. When he exhibited at the Nevada Museum of Art, it offered us an opportunity for incorporating math, science and environmentalism along with principles and elements of design as we toured children through the exhibit. Because of copyright issues, I won’t feature any of his art in this post, but I encourage you to check him out on the Internet. 

I’m linking this to One Shot Wednesday: http://onestoppoetry.com