Formed deep within the earth’s crust, precious gemstones are nature’s masterpiece, holding us spellbound us with their kaleidoscope of colours, brilliance and unique patterns. But for gemmologist Billie Hughes, it’s what lies inside the heart of each gem that fascinates her the most, as if there’s a tiny, hidden world that lived within. She eventually started taking photomicrographs to record her findings, building up a sizable database of inclusion scenes found in each gem. Her photomicrographs have won awards and been published in publications like Wall Street Journal.
“One of my favourite inclusion specimens is a piece of amethyst that I found while walking around the annual gem and mineral show in Tucson, Arizona, USA,” she shares. “It was not a particularly expensive stone, but when I looked at it, I noticed one interesting feature: a curiously shaped cristobalite crystal that looked like a mushroom. I felt that this piece was special, so I decided to buy it and add it to my sample collection.”
The photo that she took of this inclusion ended up in the Nikon Small World contest, the world’s most prestigious contest for photomicrography. “Although I had submitted several
