It's what I do. Well, some of the time...

Today I was setting up some equipment in my lab for a group of students I teach in a 4th year biology course. The course, Specialized Microscopy Techniques, is a lecture-less, hands-on, lab-technique-driven foray into the world of microscopy techniques and the equipment required to carry them out.

This is a microtome, more specifically a histology microtome. If they showed them on CSI most would know what it does, but it's not that glitzy. Biological specimens (in my case plant material) are embedded in paraffin wax and mounted above a very sharp knife. The handle on the right is turned and a ribbon of very thin (0.01mm thick) sections is produced (centre of the machine). These are mounted on microscope slides, stained, analyzed and photographed.

There's a good chance this machine was born before I was conceived. They last forever, are completely mechanical and just need the odd spurt of oil. Students get a whole new perspective on how the prepared slides they use in other courses are produced.

Oh ya, the image. Slapped an ND2 and ND4 on the front of my 50mm, turned off the lights in the room and lit it with two flashes. During the 30" exposure I stopped my hand periodically from rotating and flashed the flash laying on the desktop. The idea was to give a sense of motion to the specimen and handle, while everything else remains static.

PS: Likely best viewed large to see the details of the machine and motion of the moving parts.