These trippy pictures are actually painkillers from up close

Painkillers are, for better or worse, the world’s most-used drugs. If you’re one of the millions of people popping them every now and then, they might not look like anything special. But when you look closer, they’re actually small works of art.

Photographer Peter Juzak has been shooting various medicinal substances for the past four years, which involves a complex process where he grinds the tablet, puts it on a heated slide to melt it, and sometimes has to wait for more than a week until he can take the perfect picture. By shooting through a Jenalab polarizing microscope, the image is magnified 120 times and reveals the most wonderful colors and shapes. Every successful session can yield hundreds of images, from which he selects the best to publish them on his website.

The pictures look like a mix of broken glass, abstract geographic maps and the classic Windows Media Player audio visualizations. According to Juzak, the images stimulate his imagination and open his mind — and it’s definitely hard to disagree with him.

Check out a selection of Juzak’s pictures below, or see the full gallery on his own site.