Beauty of Another Order: Photography in Science [Hardcover]

Ann Thomas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 22, 1997

A pole vaulter in motion, algae, prehistoric footprints, human anatomy, solar eclipses, the Alps - images in scientific photographs can puzzle, startle and inspire thinking. This book presents a collection of photographs of science subjects that raised questions about catastrophe theory, human evolution and behaviour, tha nature of matter, and the place of our planet in universe. The contributors to this volume consider the history of these images, their technical genesis, and the questions of representation they may inspire. Mimi Cazort examines the conventions that governed the representation of scientific matter in prints and drawings prior to the invention and discovery of photography. Drawing on 19th-century images, Larry Schaaf illustrates a narrative of the first decades of photography. Ann Thomas shows how the search for pattern became a heuristic and aesthetic element early in the history of making scientific photographs. In another chapter, she explores the evolution of photography in astronomy. John McElhone describes a colour process - the Lippmann plate - and the context in which Gabriel Lippmann devised it at the turn of the 19th century. Contending that photographic representation altered the parameters of representation in medicine, and in complicated ways, Martin Kemp looks at the work of Galton, Batut, Morel, Diamond, Dagonet, and Londe. Marta Braun links pioneering work in the photographic representation of movement to that of Harold E. Edgerton in the 20th century.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

This album examines and illustrates the earliest applications of photography to scientific purposes. Thomas, a photography curator at Canada's National Gallery, edits seven chapters devoted either to the technology of photography, beginning with the daguerreotype, or to specific subjects in which photography opened the doors to new discoveries about natural forms and processes. Astronomy was such a subject, and early 1850s images of the moon and sun appear here, capped off by recent ones of Apollo in lunar orbit. Human anatomy and motion constitute one whole chapter, illustrated by the pioneering photographs of Albert Londe and Eadweard Muybridge. The book contains 150 images in all, depicting a variety of subjects: skeletons, plants, bullets, liquid droplets. This visual richness will attract students of photography's early history in science. Gilbert Taylor

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (December 22, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300073402
• ISBN-13: 978-0300073409
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #742,507 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great reading, September 24, 2005

By 

Marlo Kovach (new york, ny) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beauty of Another Order: Photography in Science (Hardcover)

this is a great history of the use of photography with and thru science.