When you think of an eyeball, you probably think of a smooth
marble-like sphere.
But these remarkable pictures seem less like a part of human
anatomy and more like pitted cratered landscapes.
They show the complex and intricate textures hidden within
the iris that give our eyes our unique and enchanting character.
Thin circular structures, our irises are responsible not only for giving our
eyes their colour, but also controlling the diameter pupils to determine how
much light reaches the retina.
The macro ocular portraits were taken by Armenian physics
teacher Suren Manvelyan, 36, using his friends, colleagues and pupils as
models.
'It is quite natural when you shoot macro shots of insects
and plants, but to try to make a picture of the eye? I did not expect these
results,' he said.
'I was not aware they are of such complicated appearance. Everyday
we see hundreds of eyes but do not even suspect they have such beautiful
structure, like surfaces of unknown planets.'
Said to be the windows of the soul, the eyes gain much of
their character from the unique structure of each person's iris.
The term is derived from the name of the Greek goddess of
the rainbow, due to the many colours they can have. In humans irises have been
known to be green, blue, brown, and in rarer cases, hazel, grey, violet, or
even pink.
Mr Manvelyan's pictures show the front pigmented
fibrovascular tissue known as a stroma. Beneath that lies pigmented epithelial
cells, with the whole structure connected to muscles which control the size of
the aperture of the pupil.
The iris is divided into two major regions. The pupillary
zone is the inner region whose edge forms the boundary of the pupil. The
ciliary zone is the rest of the iris that extends to its origin at the ciliary
body.
The work is literally eye-catching, but Mr Manvelyan, who
started experimenting with photography when he was 16 and is now a leading
photographer for Yerevan Magazine, is reluctant to share his technique.
'The process of taking these pictures is my secret,' he
says.
More of the photographer's work can be seen on his website.
Credits: Mail Oline
