Seattle photographer Charles Krebs won first place in the 2011 Olympus BioScapes Digital Imaging Competition, the world's foremost forum for showcasing microscope photos and movies of life science subjects. His winning image enlarges the amazing movements of a rotifer, a tiny underwater creature that sweep at lightning speed to move food into its mouth. Krebs used a special flash to freeze the cilia's...

Two West Coast photographers recently were honored by Nikon in the company's Small World competition, honoring excellence in photography through the microscope.

Charles B. Krebs, of Issaquah, Wash., was awarded first place for his photomicrograph of a common housefly. Second place went to Thomas Deerinck, of the National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research at the University of California, San Diego, for his quantum-dot fluorescence image of...

Charles Krebs gets up close and personal with the small things in life.

What the heck is that?

This is a common reaction when nature photographer Charles Krebs shows off one of his recent macro-lens creations. "I like to spark amazement in people," he says. "There are all these common things in front of you every day that have such great detail, and most people never see them."

In some cases, he captures these tiny dramas in the field. For instance, the iridescent beetle, at lower left, was taken in Olympic National Park, Wash., as the bug crawled along a log. Others, such as...