Umbra Mentis

Macroscapes

Macroscapes was born in confinement — the weeks of lockdown when travel became a word without a referent, and the only way out was inward. Working with a macro lens and a light table, Giuseppe explored the hidden geography of ordinary plant matter — flowers, food, fragments too small to notice — searching for landscapes no passport could reach.


What began as escape became something closer to cartography. Each microscopic terrain, once found, was matched to a real place on Earth — and the resemblance kept confirming an uncomfortable truth: the fragile, eroding, overheating planet visible in a piece of fruit under glass is the same planet visible from orbit. What started as a way to imagine elsewhere became, almost against its own will, a warning about here.

Macro photograph of purple cabbage, abstract folds resembling canyon rock formations.

Spiral Canyon (Antelope Canyon), Navajo territory, Arizona — where sunlight moves in sinuous shapes between the rock. I flew over it gliding my macro lens across a purple cabbage

Macro photograph of purple cabbage leaf veins, resembling mountain ridgelines

The Andes: 8,500 km, the longest continental range on Earth. I flew over them exploring a purple cabbage leaf.

Macro photograph of plant matter, texture resembling river delta channels.

The Orinoco Delta, Venezuela — ancestral home of the Warao, a labyrinth of mangrove forest and channels.

Macro photograph of passion fruit flower, resembling mangrove root systems.

Bahia's mangroves absorb as much carbon as the Amazon — yet a quarter of the world's mangroves have been destroyed in three decades. I entered them through a passion fruit flower

Macro photograph of red cabbage cross-section, resembling striped sandstone domes

Bungle Bungle, Kimberley, Australia — sacred striped domes of sandstone, algae, and iron. Found by drone in the heart of a red cabbage

Macro photograph of cabbage interior, organic forms suggesting carved figures.

The temples of Khajuraho, India, famous for their carved erotic scenes. Found while dissecting a cabbage.

Macro photograph of rose petals, resembling coral reef structures

Baa Atoll, Maldives — 250 species of coral, 1,200 of fish, dying to climate change. I immersed myself in it through a rose."

Macro photograph of red cabbage leaf, texture resembling glacial ice walls

Kyrgyzstan's glaciers retreat 15 meters a year — a warning for India, Nepal, China. I climbed their walls inside a red cabbage.

Macro photograph of backlit red cabbage leaf, resembling molten lava flow.

Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland — the 2010 eruption that grounded European air traffic. I flew over its lava, backlighting a red cabbage le

Macro photograph of red cabbage core, resembling alpine lake waters

Whiteswan Lake, British Columbia — hot springs on Ktunaxa traditional territory. I arrived there in the most intimate part of a red cabbage.

Macro photograph of spiraled plant form, resembling engineered tunnel loops

The Spiral Tunnels, Yoho National Park, Canada — engineered so trains could spiral through the mountain's impossible grade

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