How it all began

I first learned about photography, and dark room techniques, as a grad student working on the morphology of pollen from this fine specimen.
My job was to strip the white pollen off the blue petal, prepare it for viewing with a Transelectron Microscope, photograph it, and compare the differences seen in the different varieties.
This is Bird of Paradise, Strelitzia reginae.
I don't remember much from the scientific results, but I certainly do remember falling in love with photography!