Move close to a mineral and the rock in your hand becomes a collection of surfaces, edges and crystals. A small change in the light can make one part visible while another almost disappears. There is a lot to look at before deciding where the picture begins and ends.

I was already photographing minerals when I went to work at the museum. My studies in geology, mineralogy and structural geology at New Mexico Tech put names and explanations to things that were visually interesting on their own.

At the museum, I worked under Dr. Virgil Lueth, and I think of the job as helping the curator with whatever needed doing. Incoming material had to be classified. Specimens had to be selected, documented and cataloged. I helped price and sell material that wasn't right for the collection, and I greeted visitors and talked with them about what they were looking at.

There was substantial photography to do, too, and the steady time around specimens made me better at it. Explaining a mineral to a visitor turned out to be good practice. You have to think about what the other person can see and what they might need help noticing. A photograph has to do that on its own, without the specimen or the person explaining it standing beside the viewer.

I remember that time, and working with Dr. Lueth, very fondly. The museum and its exhibits have changed since; its public displays now include mineral localities, meteorites, mining history and an ultraviolet display, with a reference collection supporting research.

The specimen shown here holds spangolite and brochantite from the Blanchard Mine in New Mexico. It belongs to Mike Freeman's collection. I made the photograph; the specimen isn't mine, and the credit belongs with it.

Fine green needles cross the darker areas while broader blue-green crystal faces catch much brighter reflections. A few pale and warm patches break up the green. Some edges are sharp enough to follow; others fall away into the softer depth behind them. A tiny shift of attention turns up another surface.

My mineral photographs on Mindat keep the image and the information together. You can browse them for how they look, then follow the mineral names, localities and specimens behind them.