Extreme Macro Photos of Insect Wings by Chris Perani Layer Thousands of Images

For Chris Perani, the most diminutive details—the kind that are virtually impossible to see with the naked eye—are an endless source of wonder. His ongoing series, Wings, focuses on the prismatic effect of insects’ anatomy in what he describes as “extreme macro.” The images reveal details we’d otherwise only be able to see clearly beneath a microscope, and a meticulous process illuminates undulating, scaled surfaces that resemble chromatic pixels, stained glass, or even beadwork.

Perani uses special lenses that magnify objects up to 10 times, but he also takes up to 2,000 carefully measured shots of each specimen. He then digitally stacks them to achieve incredible clarity and dimension. Each high-resolution image is captured at 10-micron intervals—a distance shorter than the width of a human hair—so precision is paramount.

Bee

The organic architecture of bees’ wings, plus those of wasps, damselflies, beetles, and butterflies, illustrates the precision of their anatomy and the way a prism of hues is produced by both pigmentation and structural color, like iridescence.

“With many of these insects, light completely changes the result,” Perani says. “Bees, for example, often have wings that appear dark and colorless at first glance. But when light hits them at exactly the right angle, thin-film interference suddenly reveals remarkable colors, textures, and intricate structures across the wing’s surface, turning what first appears dark into a delicate fabric of light and structure.”

See more on Perani’s Instagram.

Male Valanga nigricornis