Size.   The universe is ordered on a huge range of scales, and we inhabit a position somewhere between the very big and the very small.   I’ve been able to use photography to record the 2004 Transit of Venus, where the planet passes in front of the Sun – certainly the biggest object I’ve ever photographed.  At the other end of conventional photographic practice, I managed to show the proboscides on these feeding bees, and the veins in their wings.

You can see the veins on the virgin queen ant, too, about to set off on her nuptial flight.   She’s having her wings cleaned by a worker ant, and the pose reminds me irresistably of a bridesmaid, adjusting the bride’s gown or veil.

And after the wedding, of course, there’s the wedding breakfast. Nothing is wasted in nature, and this dragonfly provided a feast for the ants. When I returned, hours later, most of the body had been taken back to the ants’ nest …

The Harris Hawk is more in scale with us, but they normally move quite fast, and photography lets us see the fine detail of hairs around the beak and nostrils.

Fascinating to see the different beak shapes between a hunter of flying and creeping prey, and this Heron, who makes a living by fishing. Form follows function …

‘Form follows feeding’ might be a better motto. These pelicans fish in quite a different way, scooping prey from a Kenyan lake.

while giraffes find a lot of their food at higher levels.

and this spider builds a web, and then waits for the food to come to her.

On a very different scale again – both of size and time – we can examine the twisted strata of these Cornish cliffs.

Pretty amazing – but there are few sites (or sights, for that matter) more impressive than the cliffs of the caldera at Thira, which is also called Santorini, in the Greek Cyclades. It’s the remains of a huge volcanic explosion in about 1600 BC, which wiped out the Minoan civilization on Crete.

Thira was a volcanic cone before the explosion, with successive eruptions pouring out lavas and pummice to produce different coloured strata. Red Beach is quiet now, though, and a great place for bathing.