Getting up close and digital with nature’s miniature life

My first enlarger, conjured from a mysterious, fatherly deal in the pub, was an Edwardian antique of mahogany and brass. It stretched horizontally along the potting bench, the bellows extending on tracks. Its fist-size lens threw a diamond-sharp image, once I had managed to sandwich my modest square of film where the big glass plate of a negative used to go.