September 18, 2024 by Rico Trebeljahr

Diatom Arrangements

The Hidden Beauty of Single Cell Algae Art Arrangements

This post is a bit of an odd one: it's a collection of images of diatom arrangements. Diatoms are single-celled algae that have a glass shell. This shell refracts light in beautiful colors if viewed under a microscope. They are a common subject for microscopy because of their unique shapes.

They come in triangles.

Circles.

Eggs. Polygons. Stars. And all sorts of other shapes.

Because of their unique shapes, people have been arranging them into intricate patterns and designs since the Victorian era. Somehow this fascinated me so much, that I decided to collect a bunch of images of these arrangements from all over the web and compile them here in one single place so that I can come back to them whenever I want to.

Every image that you see here can only be seen under a microscope and each of these tiny artworks is around a milimetre in size: Roughly the size of a small drop of water or a grain of sand...

This is how a microscopic slide with any of these arrangements would look like:

They are like tiny specks of dust, barely visible to the naked eye. And the amount of dexterity and patience that is necessary to create even one of these miniature art pieces is astonishing and there are only a handful of people in the world who practice this curious form of art. Collecting, cleaning, arranging, and fixing the diatoms is a process that can take days or even weeks.

But in the end, the result of all this work is absolutely worth it. I've organized the images by the people who created them, with a note and links to the photographer. None of these images are my own, I gave credit where I could find it. But now, without further ado let's dive into the world of diatom arrangements.

Behold. The hidden beauty of diatoms.

Klaus Kemp

Klaus Kemp was a master of diatom arrangements and he was one of the people rediscovering and perfecting this art form. Many designs you'll find on the internet go back to him. Sadly, he passed away in 2022.

The ones below are screenshots from the Diatomist Short Film.

And a few more by other photographers:

Two were photographed by Alex Hyde. He's on Instagram and has a website too.

The next four were photographed by Jonathan Crowther. He writes extensively about microscopy and diatoms on his company website and shares beautiful, highly detailed, microscopic pictures on his private website too.

The next two were photographed by Dr. Stephen Nagy. He has participated in the Nikon Small World Photography Competition and runs an old website collecting info on diatoms.

Jan Rosenboom

Jan Rosenboom is a young fellow from Germany, who has learnt the art form of Diatom Arrangement on his own with the help of some friends. He's into photographing the smallest aspects of nature under microscopes and has some beautiful photos of diatom arrangements (and insects and a bunch of other curious things) on his Instagram and Website. You should really go check him out!

J.D. Möller

Much of J.D. Möller's work was photographed by Matthias Burba. He's on Instagram and has an old website showcasing his work.

Möller also has a profile on the Microscopist's Net Website. If you scroll down there you can see that he also did some sick microphotography stuff.

R. I. Firth

Steve Beats

Source

W. M. Grant

Watson and Sons

Eduard Thum

Microscopist's Net Website for Eduard Thum

Ian Jones

Ian Jones is a microscopist and photographer who has a lot of diatom arrangements on his website. He's still alive and even has an Instagram account where he publishes other Microphotography stuff as well.

Edmund Wheeler

Microscopist's Net Website for Edmund Wheeler

Gregor Overney

His Nikon Small World Profile

Osamu Oku

Article on him by Asahi.com

Jose Almodovar

Nikon Small World Competition Entry

Robert Berdan

Robert Berdan writes extensively about photogmicrography and has a lot of diatom photos on his website. His articles are indexed and can be found here. For example here is one with a lot of detail on diatoms.

Wim van Egmond

Fun Facts About Diatoms

Heyo, glad that you made it all this way. I want to reward you with a few fun facts about diatoms.

Diatoms create 20-50% of all the oxygen on Earth. In comparison, the entire Amazon rainforest produces only around 20%.
Dead diatom shells cover the ocean floors, they make up a large part of sand. The layer of dead diatoms can be up to 800 meters thick in some places.
Diatoms constitute half of the organic material found in the Ocean and process 6.7 BILLION tonnes of silicon per year.
The Amazon Basin is nourished by Sahara sand, which consists, to a large part, of dead diatom shells that lived there when the Sahara was covered under a big lake system.
Diatom shells are used in the production of dynamite. The sand binds the nitroglycerin and keeps it from exploding on its own.
You can buy fossilized Diatom shells en masse under the name of "Diatomaceous Earth" in the garden section of your local hardware store. It's useful for many things and can be found even in weird places like toothpaste or cat litter.