One of the joys of macro photography is that for most of our lives most of us just don’t look at the world in that much detail. Whether you’re shooting or just looking at close-up shots, there’s something a bit magical about taking the time to examine things around us in minute detail. What they reveal is the “analogness” of those apparently crisp, perfect objects, their imperfections, and the artifacts of their manufacture.

So join me. Come near. Nearer! Let’s quite literally take a close look at some of the vintage Apple hardware in my collection, starting with, above, a tight crop on the Apple logo embedded in an eMate 300. Look at how you can see the colors overlap slightly on the logo creating double-thick ridges where they meet, and look at how much the rough, textured plastic resembles a choppy ocean surface—“a sea of plastic” indeed!

Oh, and if you love these shots, we’ve made some available as a pack of widescreen desktop pictures!