Envisioning Science: The Design and Craft of the Science
Image
by Felice Frankel
MIT Press, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, 2002. 328 pp.,
illus. Cloth, $55.00. ISBN 0-262-06225-9.
Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens
2022 X Avenue, Dysart, Iowa
USA.
ballast@netins.net
In the introduction to this book, two statements are purposely made
to stand out: One advises you to "read the images as if you were
reading text"; while the other boldly states that "this book
is intended to teach you to see." The book's title was almost certainly
derived from Edward Tufte's Envisioning Information (1980), which advocates
similar attitudes toward the communication of statistical data. That
book is recommended in the bibliography of this one, as are a number
of memorable works such as Charles and Ray Eames' Powers of Ten, the
stroboscopic photographs of Harold Edgerton, Peter Stevens' Patterns
in Nature, and Cyril Stanley Smith's From Art to Science. Books of that
genre (which began to appear in the 1950s) were less technical than
inspirational, and encouraged an almost poetic regard for the startling
resemblance between Modern-era scientific and abstract artistic images,
a view that Gyorgy Kepes called The New Landscape in Art and Science
(1956). This book differs from those in the sense that it can also can
serve as a technical handbook for scientific photographers, a manual
that the cover states "should become a standard tool in all research
laboratories." Written by an MIT Research Scientist, it is primarily
addressed to other scientists, with the purpose of showing them how
to produce (for illustration and presentation) documentary images that
are both accurate and effective. It includes specific sections about
the basics of photography (point of view, composition, lighting, etc.);
on photographing minute phenomena through stereo microscopes, compound
microscopes, and scanning electron microscopes; and on presenting or
printing the final results. There is also a visual chronology of the
history of scientific images, compiled and annotated by Scientific American
columnist Phylis Morrison, who with her husband, MIT physicist Philip
Morrison, was an early important contributor to science education. This
is an exceptionally beautiful book. Artists, particularly graphic designers,
will be delighted by its typography and page layout, designed by Stuart
McKee, and the rich, expressive impact of its wealth of images.
(Reprinted by permission from Ballast Quarterly Review, Vol. 18, No.
1,
Autumn 2002.)