I could never photograph stone up close and get a good result. Even with a macro lenses and good lighting, I couldn’t get the sharpness and depth of field that I wanted. Fortunately, there are much better photographer than me and I recently gave a set of stone samples to one such photographer. A well-equipped modern photographer can shoot many images of the same subject from very slightly different distances and then combine the images on a computer by a process called “focus stacking” . The results are sharp, clear, and beautiful.

The image below shows a closeup of a sample of Indiana Limestone. Click on the image for a full-screen view.

Indiana Limestone is perhaps the mostly widely used stone in the US. It was chosen for the National Cathedral, the Empire State Building, the Biltmore Castle, and countless Federal buildings and post offices from coast to coast. What you see is a hash of ooids and fossil fragments.

This texture is the reason that the Indiana Limestone can be cut and carved into nearly any shape.