For the techniques he pioneered to photograph the world of insects by a unique new method Picture Gallery With empathy, humour and unsurpassed precision, Satoshi Kuribayashi (b. 1939) creates beautiful images, moving and still, of insects and their habitats. His photographs elucidate one of the Earth’s most ecologically important, yet most unfamiliar, classes of living organisms — and show that, unexpectedly, human beings and insects have much in common. Kuribayashi’s work as a freelance photographer since the 1960s includes no fewer than 40 books and films focusing on the life of insects. Kuribayashi’s unique methods are based largely on his skill in designing and fabricating optical devices and photographic equipment. These enable him to view and capture images with the required magnification. To illustrate Ryuichi Kuwahara’s book In Front of the Ant (2004), for example, Kuribayashi adapted a medical endoscope to make an extremely wide-view “insect’s-eye” camera, with a lens of only 3 mm in diameter. Another recent work is the film Universe Among the Grass”. More information: www.kurivision.com (mainly in Japanese)