Get ready to step into the wildly fascinating world of microorganisms with Tracy Debenport, the talented microbiologist, science photographer, and designer behind the Instagram handle @under.the.scope. Tracy’s stunning photography captures the unseen beauty of tiny organisms—like the amino acids in our K18PEPTIDE™—and brings them to life in vibrantly intricate ways.
For our limited-edition holiday packaging, we teamed up with Tracy to transform these microscopic wonders into works of art you can hold in your hands. From the process of magnifying the small details to the creative spark that makes these images truly pop, let’s explore how our one-of-a-kind collaboration came to life.
hi Tracy! tell us, how did you go from microbiologist to science photographer + artist-slash-designer?
The two kind of went hand in hand. During my first job, I was studying a fungus called Aspergillus flavus. I didn't have to do any photography as part of my technical research, but I fell in love with what I saw under the microscope.
A lot of the organisms are almost transparent under a microscope, which makes them hard to see. Color stains are commonly used in microbiology to help make them visible, and they can create a really beautiful contrast. So I started experimenting with stains and color edits for the fun of it, photographing the organisms in ways that highlighted their beauty
I was so excited to show my family and friends that I started posting my microscopic pictures on social media. It just kind of took off from there.
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is that how your Instagram @under.the.scope came to be?
Yeah! Outside the lab, it was a fun and beautiful way to express myself creatively. It's not even something that I expected to pursue, but I saw that there was an actual need for it.
what was the reaction online?
I’ve had people share how it inspires them and sparks their curiosity. It wasn’t my first time getting opinions of my creations, though. Working for a biotech company in the past, I used glamour shots of microbes to communicate what our Research and Development team did to help generate positive connections with these incredible organisms.
can you explain your artistic process?
I liken my approach to portraits or glamour shots. We humans are particular about what photos of ourselves we want people to see because photos help to represent us. I feel like people don't do that with microbes, right? So my responsibility is to do the microbes justice—they're beautiful in both form and function and deserve to be celebrated.
Just like with people, it takes effort to get good lighting, a good angle, good composition, and good colors. All of that is important, and it can make the difference between people engaging or people being disinterested. In my case, I often use color stains like lactophenol cotton blue, and rose bengal to help visualize the beauty of the organisms through the microscope.
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walk us through how you created K18’s amazing holiday packaging imagery
To spotlight the K18PEPTIDE™ in K18’s molecular repair products, I began with amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins and peptides that our hair and bodies are made of. I was excited to showcase how vital peptides are for many physiological and biochemical processes throughout our bodies, including wound healing, immune system function, muscle growth and repair, cell signaling—and hair health, of course.
Starting with amino acids in a powder form, I turned them into solutions by adding water and/or alcohol. I then put them on a glass slide, and heated them with a hot plate at varying temperatures to create different crystal formations.
From there, it was a lot of experimenting with different concentrations and temperatures based on what I was trying to achieve. You never know what the slide's going to look like before you put it under the microscope—which is kind of fun—so it took days of preparing slides, experimenting, and imaging all the different crystal formations.
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