If one touches a butterfly, fine dust often remains on the finger, so-called butterfly dust. Actually, these are the tiny, differently structured scales that are found by the thousands on the tops of the butterfly wings. Chris Perani visualizes these tiny shapes with his pictures.

When the photographer looked at butterflies in a natural history museum under a microscope, he was fascinated by the innumerable details of the wings: "Many look just the same, but as soon as you enlarge them, you realize how different they are."

Immediately, Perani ordered Butterflies from an online shop. Inspired by how she can be photographed enlarged, he went to see photographer Levon Biss, known for his portraits of microorganisms.

Perani bought equipment similar to his model, such as an electric rail on which he mounted his camera. This moves after each shot by about three microns, ie 0.003 millimeters. For photographing Perani uses a 200-millimeter lens, in front of which he additionally installed a five- to ten-fold microscope optics. As a result, there is hardly any depth of field.

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Skyfolk, Atlas Moth and Blue Diadem: So beautiful are butterfly wings

At first, the work was very frustrating, says Perani: "The smallest mistake, a speck of dust, the movement of light, could ruin hours of work." In addition, the illumination of his subjects is particularly demanding, since they are so small and rich in contrast. He needed months until he had perfected the process.

Each photo consists of more than 2000 individual exposures, which Perani superimposed in the post-processing with the help of an image editing program and perfectly combined into a single shot and cleared of dust. In this way, he achieves magnifications with a tremendous amount of detail.

The tiny scales, which are mainly composed of chitin, contain color pigments that form the colorful shimmering wings of the butterflies. Its surface is never smooth, but has fine grooves in which the light breaks. The angle of incidence results in a certain color impression.

The resulting patterns fulfill various functions: they help with camouflage, imitate other animals or are useful in choosing a partner. Also, the shape of the scales is enormously important for the butterflies: they are hollow inside and filled with air, thereby they serve as a buoyancy in flight.

Meanwhile, Perani has photographed around 200 butterflies: from the Atlas moth to a Madagascar sunset moth. He does not want to quit his project for a long time yet: there are still some motives available for about 180,000 butterflies worldwide.