AMONG THE BESTS

International Images for Science recognizes a combination of scientific content and aesthetic quality.  In an increasingly visual world, good images of science are often the key to unlocking the curiosity of people. A great science image tells its story in a visually-appealing way.

Photography and science are intimately linked. Photography would be impossible without science – chemistry, optics, electronics have all played their part in helping us gather images. Yet photography is often invaluable in science, either in recording science or in communicating it to others.

Since its foundation in 1853, the Royal Photographic Society has been dedicated to supporting and promoting both the art and the science of photography. The first International Images for Science Exhibition was held in 2011, with the second, larger exhibition in 2013, touring the UK and internationally. In 2015, Siemens plc offered to support the exhibition as part of the Curiosity Project, resulting in major exhibitions in 2015/16 and 2016/17.

Now, our chosen image is described as follows,

FROM LINE TO PARTICLE

The choice of lightening can dramatically alter the way we record phenomena. Here an electrospray apparatus emits a spray of charged liquid droplets. At left, this is seen lit by an extended continuous light source such as an LED bulb. Viewed as a shadow, we see almost no useful information. At center, we see the spray with the same illumination but in reflected light. At right, the spray is captured with a short duration (125 nanosecond) flash exposure that ‘freezes’ our view of the droplets.

NOTE: Experimental setup for this test belongs to the Sharif university of technology and ARSIN.Co, under supervisory of Dr. Mohammadreza Morad and Dr. Azadeh Kebriaee. Technology of the High-Speed Flasher is ‘PhotoFreezer v2.50’.