FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Tobi]

Hi all,

after my first steps in creating mineral collages ( https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=3682 and https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=4183 ) I got another idea for mineral charts: I will try to put my best specimens together to present them as a classy "Best Of" from my collection. I tried to scale the specimens in a way that the sizes correspond more or less to their actual sizes; the larger they are in person, the larger I scaled them on the mineral chart. There's no certain system, neither mineral groups nor localities; this is just my own arrangement of favourites from my collection ...

I don't know how much of them I will finally produce, maybe 3 or 4 like this first chart - hope you'll enjoy it:

[Susan Robinson]

Wonderful! You have an artist's eye for creating a nice arrangement of the minerals, and your collection shows well-chosen specimens. I look forward to seeing more images like this one.
Susan Robinson

[Carles Millan]

Impressive, astonishing! You do have an exceptional taste to put the photos together in a very beautilful and elegant way. Please, go ahead and post more of them.

[Tobi]

Susan and Carles, thank you so much for your encouraging and motivating words! I found out that it takes me exactly one hour to create such a chart, from choosing the photos, scaling them, arranging them together and finally labeling them ... not too much work for such a beautiful result; so I managed to compile another one today:

[Tobi]

No. 3:

[Tobi]

No. 4:

[LeadMineGal]

I have only one word to say about your collection: 'WOW'!!
I believe I caught myself drooling for a moment as I so want to get out and dig. Sadly, it is snowing here in Massachusetts tonight and very cold, but your photo's really put a smile on my face. Thank you.

[Enrique Llorens]

Tobi, a balanced distribution of beauty in each of your collages.

Regards.

[Pierre Joubert]

Hi Tobi, you are a real artist!!! Very nice presentation.

[yowanni]

Those German pyromorphites are amazing! Beautiful minerals and great photos.
Regards

[Tobi]

Thank you all SO MUCH for your kind words - I didn't expect such an enthusiastic response, wow :)

Today I finished a fifth one, and I revised the others: I interchanged some specimen photos between different charts because they seemed not perfectly balanced to me. In some charts there were many colourful specimens while other charts looked rather pale. And then there were charts where I thought that a certain colouring was missing ... however:

Here they are now, the four you see above slightly revised - and a new one is added. Have fun :)

Tobi

[Tobi]

No. 6:

[Jamison Brizendine]

I don’t recall saying this or not, but I am very impressed with these collages you have made Tobi. Of course, my favorite is the fluorite poster you made last year.

That being said, I wish that publishers who create mineralogy textbooks would adopt a practice of displaying minerals in their books like you have done here. The textbook I used, Mineralogy 2nd Edition by Dexter Perkins (2001), had a photo spread of minerals along with colored photos of thin sections. The choices for minerals the publishers used however were either grainy or very poor quality choices. I guess the publishers used these photos to keep the costs down for the book.

I decided that after I graduated from college that I would purchase the 3rd edition (2010) of the book. I was disappointed, however, to see that the pictures had not been replaced despite the advancements in digital photography.

I think if the publishers of mineralogy textbooks devoted some pages of minerals displayed in this way, more geology students would be drawn into the beauty of minerals, instead of being put off by complex diagrams, mathematical equations and generic black and white photos of thin sections or poor quality specimens of minerals. Seeing grainy pictures of a mineral in a textbook doesn't inspire students to become future mineral collectors. The poster method shown here gives a scale and color that I feel is lacking in textbooks today.

Well done!