Picturing Science and Engineering
A guide to making scientific photographs for presentations, journal submissions, and covers, featuring step-by-step instructions and case studies.
One of the most powerful ways for scientists to document and communicate their work is through photography. Unfortunately, most scientists have little or no training in that craft. In Picturing Science and Engineering, Felice offers a guide for creating science images that are both accurate and visually stunning. The book provides detailed instructions for making science photographs using the DSLR camera, the flatbed scanner, and the phone camera. It includes a series of step-by-step case studies, describing how final images were designed for cover submissions and other kinds of visualizations.
Illustrated in color throughout, the book encourages the reader to learn by doing, following Felice as she recreates the stages of discovery that lead to a good science visual. Felice shows readers how to present their work with graphics—how to tell a visual story—and considers issues of image adjustment and enhancement. She describes how developing the right visual to express a concept not only helps make science accessible to nonspecialists, but also informs the science itself, helping scientists clarify their thinking.
Reviews
As we create ever more sophisticated tools to explore the micro and macro universe, it’s easy to become detached from agape understanding and appreciation of what we can’t see, feel and sense. Felice Frankel’s work brings those worlds within reach so that we can appreciate not only the technical marvels but also the enormous beauty and infinite variety of creation, both natural and manmade.Yo-Yo Ma
I’m pretty sure there has never been an instructional manual more gorgeous than this one, nor more captivating to people (like me) who have no practical need for its instructions. Useful, enlightening, magnificent: what more could anyone want?Kurt Andersen, author of Fantasyland and host of public radio’s Studio 360
Frankel is a pioneer in the communication of modern science through photography. With this wonderful book, she presents an object of art as much as an instructive document. Each page is rich in visual aesthetics—but unlike most other works of art, here the artist tells her secrets.Phillip Sharp, Nobel laureate in medicine (1993)
Too often, innovations emerging from within the laboratory go unrecognized. With the clarity of an expert and the passion of a true aficionado, Frankel once again proves to be crucial in bridging scientific discovery and public consciousness.Paola Antonelli, senior curator of Architecture and Design and director of research and development at The Museum of Modern Art
Felice Frankel shows us how to create photographic images that make complex things appear simple. No matter if she uses a camera or a scanner, a wide angle or a microscope she advocates clarity and achieves beauty. She works to delight.Stefan Sagmeister, designer
The clearest way into science is (through) wonderment. In ‘Picturing’, Frankel transforms the noun into the verb by curating a stellar cabinet of scientific curiosities. For the first time, learning how to picture and picturing how to learn to unite to enable, empower, inspire and enlighten all sentient beings.Neri Oxman, architect, designer, and professor at the MIT Media Lab