What is it?

click photo to enlarge
What is it? A false-colour photograph of a mountain range? A colourfully prepared meat dish ready for eating? Part of the innards of a dead animal? The wrinkled skin of an exotic lizard? It's none of these, but is, as its label tells, a detail of an unfurling rhubarb leaf.

Over the past few days , the warmer weather has caused the green, red, pink and yellow buds and shoots of my rhubarb to become much more visible. As I passed it today I stopped and looked closely at the unlikely shapes and colours that it was producing. Some of the newer, darker, almost brownish pieces looked like a small brain, all shiny wrinkles and folds. Other shoots had miniature leaves with colourful veins and leaves. The piece in my image was only an inch or so across and looked quite otherworldly - like a high definition photograph of the untrodden land of a distant planet. I took this shot of it, and decided it would make a good subject for one of those photographic quizzes where people have to guess what something is from a fairly close-up shot. I wouldn't have guessed what this was, and I reflected that seeing the familiar in an unfamiliar way is one of the small pleasures of the macro lens.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/40 second
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On