Spike Walker

Spike Walker, creator of five of our Award-winning pictures, has been taking biomedical images for most of his life.

"Microscopes have been my life since I was about ten and photomicrography since I was 12 years old, which is quite a long time," he says.

With a degree in zoology, Spike originally went into teaching, before pursuing his sideline in taking freelance photomicrographs full-time in the 1980s, working on microscopes in his bedroom – a choice Spike says he made to satisfy his "creative urges".

His work has not been without setbacks. Some of his early subjects were live organisms, such as protozoa in water, which were difficult to keep alive for the couple of weeks it would take to wait for film to be processed in case a re-shoot was required.

Spike then progressed to the garage, where he now has a whole range of microscopes. He has welcomed the surge of new digital imaging techniques to his field of work, which have bought greater flexibility and more options for enhancing and creating images.

"Going over to digital photography is an enormous liberator for photographers and especially micrographers," he explains. "Once you have got a digital image you can do whatever you please."

And with this new technology, Spike is working as hard as ever combining his years of experience with modern digital techniques.

"This is a new lease of life for me, I'm now working 14 hours a day making new, exciting images."