Remarkable Colors, Textures, and Combinations Characterize László Kupi’s Vibrant Portraits of Minerals



Nature Photography Science

#geology #László Kupi #minerals #nature #rocks

March 14, 2024

Kate Mothes

A tree-shaped pink mineral growing out of a yellow mineral base.

All images © László Kupi, shared with permission

One of the things that makes minerals and crystals so compelling is that we just don’t see them very often. While some like salt, quartz, and mica form on the earth’s surface, others are found deep within the planet’s crust. From prismatic pillars to cerulean tufts to lime-green nodes, the inorganic growths take myriad forms.

Budapest-based ore geologist and photographer László Kupi has been fascinated by the crystalline structures since childhood, spurring a passion for documenting their remarkable diversity. His portraits span a veritably endless assortment of shapes, sizes, colors, and combinations, capturing astonishing interactions between a wide variety of specimens.

The subjects of Kupi’s images form in a range of environments and conditions. Some emerge through a hydrothermal process in which hot water melts the minerals, seeping through fractures in porous rock and re-collecting in pockets and veins. Others emerge from metamorphic reactions in the earth’s crust, solidify from molten rock, or change through weathering and erosion.

Kupi documents minerals in his own collection along with those found in institutions and natural history archives around the world. Explore more on his website, and follow Instagram for updates.

Gold-colored ray-shaped minerals intersect with a quartz crystal.  A side-by-side image of two minerals. On the left, red crystalline nodes grow out of a dark base. On the right, a pillar crystal has a prismatic color scheme with a black top.

A red and purple crystal combination.

A side-by-side image of two minerals. On the left, amethyst grows out of a golden base. On the right, a detail of a delicate cerulean blue mineral that looks fuzzy.

A lime-green mineral with lots of small crystalline nodes.

A composite mineral with different types of crystals and textures.

A side-by-side image of two minerals. On the left, a metallic hematite, and on the left, a gold floret grows out of a quartz crystal.

A bright pink crystal.

#geology #László Kupi #minerals #nature #rocks

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Source: thisiscolossal.com

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