Roy Thomson Hall and National Geographic Live present

Beauty and the Bizarre

When Anand Varma takes a photograph of a parasitic wasp consuming a caterpillar from the inside, he doesn’t want you to be disgusted. He wants you to be astonished. After all, he’s devoted years of his life to perfecting his techniques to create dramatic, bizarre—and beautiful—images of the miniature world around us. In these truly unique images, he reveals the secret life cycle of the honeybee, captures the lightning-fast behaviours of hummingbirds, and offers a rare glimpse at our world's small wonders.

“I graduated with a degree in integrative biology from UC Berkeley and now help biologists communicate their research through photographs. My work tells the story behind the science on everything from primate behaviour and hummingbird biomechanics to amphibian diseases and mangrove forests.” – Anand Varma