There are many small wonders that human eyes can’t see. Thanks to photomicrographers (微观摄影师), we can see the amazing small worlds.

Zhang Yefei is one of the photomicrographers. In the past two years, the 41-year old engineer from Jiangsu has shot (拍摄) the eggs of hundreds of butterflies and moths (蛾) in his free time. His photo of moth eggs won him a top 20 award (奖) at the 2022 Nikon Small World Competition in October.

Looking for moth eggs is very difficult, because they are often really small. Zhang usually takes a magnifying glass during his trip into the wild. He uses it to look for the leaves with eggs on them.

To take photos of eggs, Zhang uses a microscope and some special tools. But a photo can shoot only a small part of the egg. To fully show an egg, he first takes about 500 to 1,000 photos. Then, he uses a computer technology to turn the photos into one. It often takes him about six hours to finish one piece of photo, with the longest one taking 21 hours. “I’m not a full-time photomicrographer, so I don’t have enough time to shoot and make photos.” Zhang said.

Although it has many difficulties, taking photos also brings Zhang surprises. While he uses LED lights to light the photos, the temperature can help the incubation (孵化) of the egg. So he was able to see how a larva (幼虫) turns into a butterfly.

“I’ll try and find out more interesting things about the small world and bring them to light,” Zhang said.

I’m a piano teacher. I can feel clearly how talent and hard work make a big difference to my students.

    16     For example, some of my students just spend less than half a year learning to play the piano well. But other students need to learn for years. Many of my talented students learn faster than I did before, but talent doesn’t always bring a good result. When playing the piano seems easy to a student, he or she sometimes finds it boring and then gives up.     17    

Some of my students work very hard.     18     I teach them again and again and they never stop practicing. However, it just does not work for these students. In my eyes, it is not necessary to do everything very well. When you really don’t have any talent for something, the best way is to give up.     19    

    20     If you want to do the best, you need to follow your talents and work as hard as you can. Don’t give up half way.