The Eric Marson Slide Preparation Award Gallery

Plant sections, insects, forams or rocks – submissions in any area of interest were welcome.
This year there were entries from only three members, so the Organiser submitted two entries himself!
As the organiser was also the Judge he abstained from assessing his own work. However, he judged that each of the member entries merited a Certificate.

Marson Awards for excellence.

1.  John Rhodes – Two kinds of pollen
2.  Peter Bracey – Lesser Wax Moth
3.  Pam Hamer – Stone from Compton Bay
4.  Pam Hamer – Rock sample from Predazzo

The Judge commented on the submissions as follows:

As in previous years I am reluctant to rank the entries as 1st, 2nd, etc., because the subjects and techniques are so varied. Each deserves a Marson Certificate. I would, however, like to comment on the entries (in gallery order):

John Rhodes
Two slides of pollen. Particularly interesting in that they were old preserved samples and unstained. I think they imaged particularly well using differential interference contrast which brought out detail without requiring a stain.
John always produces very competent mounts and these are no exception. These were also LOCA mounts.

Peter Bracey
I was particularly impressed with this deep cell mount of the larva of a lesser wax moth and was intrigued to know how the specimen was prepared prior to mounting. Apparently, this was by a fairly conventional series of alcohol strengths to dehydrate the specimen before finally mounting in LOCA.
The preparation was neat in presentation and the specimen showed little sign of any of the shrinkage that can easily occur with soft bodied specimens.
Peter claims to be a novice, but this was a well prepared slide. Well done!

Pam Hamer
Two slides were submitted, both of them geological specimens.
I had great fun photographing the very crystalline Compton Bay, Isle of Wight sample and this produced some impressive images.
For those that appreciate cross-eye stereo images, have a look at the gallery exhibit.
The other slide, accompanied by an extensive narrative, was of a geological sample from the village of Predazzo in Italy. Interestingly, there is a slide of a similar sample from Predazzo in the Club’s Caffyn collection. It is an attractive sample and Pam has mounted it in acrylic resin to enable the specimen to be polished in a manner suitable for epi-illumination.
A nice pair of slides.

Graham Matthews
That’s me! – I decline to comment except to note that one is a mite and one an insect, both mounted in LOCA. I will pass these to someone else to evaluate.

Final comments
This was an interesting collection of slides of different subjects.
It is notable that apart from the geological specimens, all the slides used LOCA as a mounting medium and that this material shows its versatility in being usable for both thin mounts of conventionally prepared specimens and for deep cell mounts that can be difficult to prepare in, for example, resins or fluid mounts. It remains to be seen what the long-term durability of LOCA may be, but the early results look promising.

Pam Hamer also made a video of her Compton Bay fragments:

Click the arrows to move through the slides. Click the symbol at bottom right for a larger version.

You can also see the slide exhibits, with some notes, in this PowerPoint presentation by the organiser, Graham Matthews:

Click the arrows to move through the slides. Click the symbol at bottom right for a larger version.

And, of course, it’s fascinating to see how Graham photographs all the slides for the Exhibition and so we can present them on this website.  Here’s his second PowerPoint:

Click the arrows to move through the slides. Click the symbol at bottom right for a larger version.