I am an igneous petrologist, with a particular interest in continental alkaline rocks. My avatar is a photo of a pair of rock hyraxes from Mount Kenya.

I take my macro photographs with an Olympus E330 SLR camera, using the Zuiko 50 mm macro lens. I use a home-made apparatus to photograph in, which doesn't much resemble any setup I've read about. A bank of 8 50 watt halogen lights is directed upward at an arcuate hood lined with crushed aluminum foil; beneath the lights and about 30 cm above the specimen is a sheet of frosted transparent acrylic. Small pieces of black cardboard, placed on top of the acrylic sheet, allow me to selectively shade some areas to eliminate or reduce extreme reflections. In many cases, and especially for glassy or metallic specimens, I find placing sheets of paper towel over the acrylic useful to create an extremely even, diffuse light source. All of these elements are mounted within a wooden frame spray-painted flat black to eliminate all but overhead light. Small white or aluminized cardboard reflectors, angled towards the specimen from the surface or from attached wires anchored to vertical segments of dowel (painted black!), provide for fill lighting and control of specific reflections. Exposure times are typically about 1 second but may be as great as 3.2 seconds.

I have just begun using a Canon XSi on an Olympus petrographic microscope to take microphotographs. As I overcome the additional technical difficulties that microphotography presents, I will be adding many photographs of this type, some of unusual minerals from little-known locations I have encountered during my collecting in alkaline complexes around the world.

I hope you enjoy my Mindat gallery!