Name: Håkan Kvarnström
Picture title: Spiral Beauty
Category: Micro
Nationality: Swedish
Occupation: Risk Officer

Håkan says:
‘This green algae Spirogyra has one of the most fascinating chloroplast shapes of all algae – a helical shape, or spiral. Spirogyras thrive in almost any freshwater environment and are a common species that is easy to find in shallow ponds, ditches and lakes.

For this photograph I stained some of the Spirogyra strands with a number of fluorescent dyes to highlight the spirally shaped chloroplasts. They were then mixed with natural strands and placed next to each other on a glass slide and photographed in fluorescent light.’

Technical information:
Sony A9
Olympus UPlanSAPO 20x
ISO 250
0.3 sec
Accessories: Microscope
Post processing: Zerene Stacker, Lightroom and Photoshop. Cropped, haze removal, noise reduction, contrast enhancement.

Website: hakankvarnstrom.com
Instagram: micromundusphotography
Facebook: micromundusphotography 
Flickr: micromundus
500px: micromundus