Alexandra Siy

Mosquito Bite was inspired by the image that appears on the cover, an electron micrograph taken by Dennis Kunkel. The title came to me in a flash while looking at this picture of a mosquito posed on human skin. (Who hasn’t been bitten by a mosquito?) A game of hide-and-seek emerged as the central story. (Who hasn’t played hide-and-seek?)
Dennis’s images were a beautiful and exciting way to introduce young readers to the hidden world of the mosquito. But how would I show the children’s nighttime game of hide-and-seek? The answer came when I thought about the nature of the micrographs: they were colored to highlight microscopic structures. To reveal the contrasting macro world, I photographed the hide-and-seek game in black-and-white. These pictures have been enlarged to emphasize their "grainy" texture--and contrast with the sharpness of Dennis's extraordinary micrographs.