Grabbing people’s attention by creating a more interesting image is essential to engage a viewer in a scientific subject, writes Felice Frankel, an MIT expert and scientific photographer.
In an article for the Conversation, she says that anyone can easily create a more interesting image to engage a viewer and get them to pay attention.
Scientists and photographers need to create engaging graphics and learn how to speak a photographic ‘language’ to non-experts to combat the present atmosphere of scientific mistrust, she says.
If the image is good enough, a person will stop to ask questions, she suggests.
Ms Frankel contends that people are less afraid to ask questions when they see images. Most have taken pictures and can even speak a photographic ‘language.’These small ‘robots’ can create a complex system when they find each other as they roam around
Pictures like this of the universe are amazing and mysterious and spark curiosity. This first image shows a bright ring formed as light bends in the intense gravity around a black hole that is 6.5 billion times more massive than the Sun
Were you recently gobsmacked when you saw the very first image of a black hole? I know I was.
Did I understand what I was seeing? Not exactly. I certainly needed an explanation, or two. But first and foremost, I stopped to look, as I bet many others did, too … and then, I began to ask questions.
Pictures like this of the universe are amazing and mysterious and spark curiosity. I am convinced that part of the keen interest in all things astronomical has to do with the images scientists share – like the black hole, and so many other Hubble telescope images, for example. Those popular images are welcoming and help make the science accessible.
I contend people are less afraid to ask questions when they see images. Most have taken pictures and can even speak a photographic ‘language.’
You can take notice of color, for example, and wonder if it suggests meaning – why is that black hole orange? I bet you know how to ask questions about a photograph.
For years, as a science photographer, I’ve been trying to persuade my colleagues in research that they can create more compelling images of their work.
With simple techniques described in my new book ‘Picturing Science and Engineering,’ scientists, and anyone else for that matter, can easily create a more interesting image — one to engage a viewer to pay attention.
It’s no longer good enough to create photographs or other visuals only for the experts.
Popular images are welcoming and help make the science accessible. Learning how to speak to non-experts is essential if scientists are to combat the atmosphere of scientific mistrust. Here, different lighting and a new angle display the material in a more interesting and informative way
Pictured here, a newly-invented material but the image might not really grab you
Learning how to speak to non-experts is essential if scientists are to combat the frightening present atmosphere of scientific mistrust.
Here, for example, is an image that researcher Alice Nasto created of her work in Mechanical Engineering at MIT. She fabricated material that emulated sea otter fur for the purpose of studying insulation. Compare it with the photograph that I made of the same material. If you don’t see the difference, then I am in real trouble.
I hope you are more compelled to look at the image that I made of the same material. All I did was fold it and light it differently. There was nothing terribly complicated about my process.
But because of the drama of the lighting you are more compelled to look. In addition, folding the material gives you more information – it is highly flexible, with a ‘hairy’ surface.
The fact is, science is all around you. Everything you see has to do with various scientific phenomena. Why not start a conversation about what’s going on scientifically by looking at those phenomena in a compelling image?
A beautiful image captivates the eye and then can open the conversation about the scientific principles at play within it. Here, condensation forming on the inside of a glass lid while sauteing colored peppers
For example, have you ever noticed the condensation forming on the inside of a glass lid while sauteing colored peppers?
I made this image with my phone, taking advantage of the opportunity phone cameras offer to capture an evanescent moment. I quickly snapped the shot. In just a few seconds that image was gone, as I knew it would be. You are seeing condensation of water as the cooking peppers steam; on the glass cover, it’s easy to see how that phenomenon effects the optics of the colors.
Or take this next image.
One day in Boston, Ms Frankel noticed that some trees were wrapped in cellophane and water droplets formed along folds in cellophane. She said it grabbed her attention when she noticed that several of the water drops formed a line along a couple of creases
While walking along a street in Boston, I realized some of the trees were wrapped in cellophane. I have no idea why. But it grabbed my attention when I noticed that several of the water drops formed a line along a couple of creases.
There’s some interesting physics behind why that happens. The crease is acting as a guide for the water drops. The drops are ‘self-assembling,’ a phenomenon which is key to various nanotechnology fields.
One example found in nature is the way DNA is assembled in our cells, guided by a messenger RNA. In laboratories, researchers are assembling drugs by creating substrates that will attract certain chemicals.
Often, concepts or structures in science are not possible to photograph. When that’s the case, I try to come up with some sort of photographic metaphor that suggests the idea. Here’s one example.
Often, concepts or structures in science are not possible to photograph. A composite of several other images results in one that illustrates an idea that would be impossible to capture with a photo
Scientists developed a technique that ‘deactivated’ particular cells in our bodies – macrophages – so that they would not fight against an implanted medical device.
As a way to illustrate this research, I combined a few pieces of images that I’d previously made to suggest the idea behind it.
The metaphor is not perfect – all metaphors fall apart – but it was good enough to get the cover of an important journal.
In ‘Ways of Seeing,’ art critic John Berger wrote, ‘We only see what we look at. To look is an act of choice.’
Choosing to look at science might very well be the first step in having important conversations about the world around you.
Felice Frankel is the author of Picturing Science and Engineering and wrote this piece for the Conversation.
WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE GALAXY MESSIER 87?
The elliptical galaxy Messier 87 (M87) is the home of several trillion stars, a supermassive black hole and a family of roughly 15,000 globular star clusters.
For comparison, our Milky Way galaxy contains only a few hundred billion stars and about 150 globular clusters.
The monstrous M87 is the dominant member of the neighbouring Virgo cluster of galaxies, which contains some 2,000 galaxies.
Discovered in 1781 by Charles Messier, this galaxy is located 54 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Virgo.
It can be easily observed using a small telescope, with the most spectacular views available in May.
The elliptical galaxy Messier 87 (M87) is the home of several trillion stars, a supermassive black hole and a family of roughly 15,000 globular star clusters. This Hubble image is a composite of individual observations in visible and infrared light
M87’s most striking features are the blue jet near the centre and the myriad of star-like globular clusters scattered throughout the image.
The jet is a black-hole-powered stream of material that is being ejected from M87’s core.
As gaseous material from the centre of the galaxy accretes onto the black hole, the energy released produces a stream of subatomic particles that are accelerated to velocities near the speed of light.
At the centre of the Virgo cluster, M87 may have accumulated some of its many globular clusters by gravitationally pulling them from nearby dwarf galaxies that seem to be devoid of such clusters today.
