“The eye of the camera would see plainly where the human eye would find nothing but darkness.”
Photography has been entrusted by early scientist as the objective eye that see beyond the limit of human perception and exposes truth on a piece of paper. The ‘objectiveness’ and the relatively realistic photographic reproduction of the subject photographed has given the medium the unshakable authority in science. From the photographic plate made by Henri Becquerel showing the presence of invisible radiation to the Hubble Space Telescope recording the light of galaxies 3-8 billion light years distant from our planet, countless images exemplifies the symbiotic relationships between photography and science.
These photos are part of the project ‘Science Education’, a visual research of imagery in science textbooks and science museums in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. The project investigates the blurred line between fact and fiction, as well as the arbitrariness of many “scientific” images in the public domain.
Photographs & Text: Sheung Yiu, Hong Kong. Website: www.sheungyiu.com.
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