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How photography has advanced the natural sciences

Adobe Communications Team

03-29-2022

This photomicrograph, taken by the researcher Michael Peres, uses polarized light to visualize elements in formoterol, a medication designed to improve breathing by relaxing muscles in the airways. It is just one many examples of the power of photography to provide new windows into the natural sciences.

In 1839, photography entered the public sphere in the form of daguerreotypes, metal-based images formed with the help of chemicals like iodine and mercury. Almost immediately, a growing class of professional scientists put photography to work, expanding and systematizing what had largely been the realm of amateurs up until this time. The output of their work can be seen as early as 1843, when the English botanist Anna Atkins published a book featuring photos of algae.

Since then, advancements in photography have continued at breakneck speeds, increasing both the technology’s availability and power. Flexible film, introduced in the 1880s by Kodak founder George Eastman, simplified the process of taking photographs. The halftone process, the act of reducing photographs to tiny individual dots, emerged around this same time and opened up photography to mass distribution. And while the first color photograph was taken in 1861, it would be another roughly 100 years before it became widely available and accepted.

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Photography branches out

With every development, amateurs and professionals have been busy pioneering new uses for photography. The natural sciences have been no exception.

Michael Peres is an award-winning photo educator, author, and photographer, as well as a faculty member of Rochester Institute of Technology’s School of Photographic Arts and Sciences. Peres explains the evolution of natural science photography as one driven as much by curiosity as a commitment to expanding human understanding. “There was a new device and scientists wanted to try it,” he says. “They wanted to see if they could help science, help discovery, help teach, learn, and improve society as a whole.”

Sure enough, from cells to stars, researchers have used ever-more powerful cameras and lenses to observe the previously observable, document new discoveries, and raise awareness of the ecosystems we rely so heavily on.