In these hyperlinked days, one might reasonably guess that the subject of the first book of photographs may have been along the lines of the True Purpose of the Internet (ask someone who’s seen “Avenue Q” if you don’t know). Or if not that, perhaps cityscapes, or naval vessels, or still lifes, or battlefields. But [...]

Earlier, I blogged about one of my flash diffusers, and about how most flash macro photography is improved by softening the flash’s harsh artificial light. My observations were not novel, of course, and I love spying on the various contraptions macrophotographers invent as they aim for perfect diffusion. See, for example, recent posts by Seth [...]

Thrifty Thursdays feature photographs taken with equipment costing less than $500. [HP deskjet F4280 printer/scanner - $150] This week’s inexpensive photo project makes use of a desktop scanner to translate a living plant into a digital specimen. Creating virtual natural history collections is an activity well-suited for elementary school science classrooms, for children old enough [...]

A South American Mischocyttarus paper wasp hangs out on its characteristically long nest. The nest is made of chewed, processed plant fibers, similar to those of our temperate paper wasps but taking a much more unusual form. How long is the nest? Warm up your scrolling muscles! Here is a life-size photograph: photo details: Canon EF 17-40mm [...]

Elise Andrew runs the most popular Science page on facebook. I know so, because I see her content reshared dozens of times daily in my news feed. Well, it’s not really her content, but I’ll get back to that in a minute. The point is, I F*cking Love Science is big. By posting photos, cartoons, news [...]

In the comments, HBG_Dave makes a salient observation: I’ve always wondered why I like your photographs even though my personal theme has always been maximum sharp focus (not that I get it very often) and I tend to consider any blurring as a flaw. I think it must be because your compositions use the range [...]

As you know, I photograph ants. Lots of them. There’s good reason for this, aside from my formal training as an ant biologist. Ants and other social insects make fascinating subjects. Their social habits parallel our own enough, perhaps, to allow us the illusion of relating to the insects. In ants, we see a little [...]

“Science Photography” can be read two ways: 1. as illustration of scientific subject matter, or 2. as a tool to gather data as part of the scientific process. What’s the difference? Images can be intended to convey information, or to collect it. Most science photography, including the majority of images featured in this blog, is of [...]

Thrifty Thursdays feature photographs taken with equipment costing less than $500. [iPhone 4S - $336] The best camera is the one you have with you, they say. And when I saw the afternoon sun filtering through this palmetto leaf in Gainesville’s Austin Cary Forest last week I had to take a shot. Simple patterns in [...]

Meet Tetradonia, a pugnacious little rove beetle that eats army ants: Any animal specialized to feed on army ants is seriously badass, especially those that are smaller than the ants themselves. I’ve wanted to photograph Tetradonia for years, and this January during the BugShot workshop we happened across this one sniping at the edges of an [...]

I started photographing insects about 10 years ago. Here’s a shot from the beginning: And a congener, from this week: Aside from the obvious improvements to technology, what has changed? I’d say my two biggest improvements come from an obsession with simplifying composition so the background doesn’t compete with the subject, and from my lowered [...]

I’ve never really appreciated how lucky I am to have grown up with the blue marble. A poster of the earth floating in an endless black sea decorated the walls of my science classrooms since I was in elementary school. Even if it wasn’t spoken regularly, that image ensured that I knew the duality of [...]

Dillon Marsh’s photographs of sociable weaver nests, taken in the Kalahari Desert of Southern Africa, beautifully illustrate traditional nature–the realm of wild animals–overlapping with human civilization. The apparent bales of hay draped over the tops and sides of telephone poles are home to hundreds of songbirds, which construct and maintain their monstrous nests communally. While [...]

Whoa, we are in Iceland. Our thirty days at sea are over. This is the sappy wrap up post, so I’ll try to keep the poetic waxing to a minimum. In the last 30 days, the scientists aboard the R/V Knorr have woken up early, gone to bed late, collected data, fought about which condiments [...]

This time-lapse video of Sunday’s solar eclipse highlights the Sun’s outer layers: The photographer Cory Poole constructed the video by pasting together 700 photographs taken with a Coronado Solar Max 60 Double Stack telescope. According to Jason Kottke, Poole used a filter that only allows light from hydrogen atoms moving from the 2nd excited state [...]

Today’s Google doodle pays homage to the photography of Eadweard J. Muybridge, pioneering photographer and inventor of the zoopraxiscope. If he had somehow survived to witness the multimedia era, Muybridge would be marking his 182nd birthday. The running horse video, which replaces the Google logo today, comes from Muybridge’s most famous photographic experiment. Renowned for [...]

There’s a reason that so many sci-fi thrillers are set in space. Well, there are probably many reasons. But it’s certainly true that the tools of space exploration often have a haunting, sterile, almost creepy quality. Vincent Fournier captures that quality in his photographs, taken at the research and operations facilities of space programs around [...]

If I only had a private jet at my beck and call, I could zip around the country to all these fine exhibits… sigh! _____________ EXHIBITS: NORTHEAST REGION Princeton University’s ART of SCIENCE May 10, 2013 – Atrium, Friend Center Engineering Library Princeton University 35 Olden Street Princeton, NJ The Art of Science exhibition marks [...]

Oh, my. The more I look, the more I find. Get your sciart on, peeps! _____________ EXHIBITS: NORTHEAST REGION Pulse: Art and Medicine February 16 to April 13, 2013 The Mansion at Strathmore 10701 Rockville Pike North Bethesda, MD Imagine the place where art, science and the human body intersect: that’s the idea behind Pulse: [...]

Alex Wild over at Compound Eye is quick to point out with his Thrifty Thursday posts that great photos can be taken with relatively inexpensive equipment… IF you know what you’re doing. Here’s a great case in point: A few nights ago, I was strolling along a pedestrian mall in Boulder, CO with some friends. [...]

As I’ve pointed out before on Symbiartic, before the modern naturalist movement, nature lovers would shoot and kill the objects of their fancy to get a better look. Audubon himself would take dead specimens and pin them into life-like poses before drawing them and turning them into the prints that are so treasured today. But [...]

Last month, we posted a wide variety of science-art here at Symbiartic. We thought it’d be nice to post an overview in case you missed or wanted to revisit any. Enjoy!

Most people equate geology with dull, grey rocks, but petrology Professor Bernardo Cesare is tapping into their spectacular beauty with his MicROCKScopica project. Using a standard technique for analyzing mineral composition of rocks, Cesare cuts and grinds sections of rock into 30-micron-thick slices (that’s three-hundredths of a millimeter), mounts them onto microscope slides and shines [...]

The Promise – a bold credited, copyright future Initially, I was enamored by Pinterest, the image sharing and collecting site.  It’s like a visual scrapbook of all the things you love online, and does what Tumblr has neglected to do, and requires a link back to the source of each image. Amazing. A boon for artists, illustrators [...]

Already announced by Karyn Traphagen on the ScienceOnline2012 blog, I’m taking another look at the winners of the first ScienceOnline Science-Art Show. Artwork at a science communication conference in many ways should be a no-brainer: visuals are often left as frills and afterthoughts in blog posts, books and articles. But a strong image can viscerally [...]

Hey, yo, happy 2012! This edition of the SciArt Buzz features bacterial rocket science among other fascinating shows of intelligence. Get out there and enjoy some science art! SCIART LECTURES/EVENTS **NEW** San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery (San Francisco, CA): Friday, Jan. 20, 2012, 6-8pm | Opening Reception for Vast and Undetectable | This exhibition explores [...]

This is a guest post by Jim Perkins, a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology’s medical illustration program. I met Jim through the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators, but before I met him in person, I was a big fan of his posts to the GNSI’s email discussion list. (For those of you not [...]

#PHD2013 is getting closer and closer. In the meantime, here are some more portraits of San Diego Zoo residents, following on from last week’s post. Here’s an angolan colobus monkey, with some bits of breakfast stuck to its face. An African Grey Parrot, a conspecific of the famous Alex. A menacing Steller’s Sea Eagle, the [...]

Longtime readers of this blog know that I like to take photos, and I primarily take them of two types of subjects: nighttime cityscapes, and animals. When you’re shooting architecture, you can take your time, you can plan. You can set up your tripod and be reasonably certain what your photo will look like when [...]

I’m at the annual conference of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums this week in Phoenix. Since I’m too busy livetweeting conference sessions to write a post this week, here are a few photos of famous people with animals. Public Service Announcement: Please remember that wild animals are not suitable pets. No matter what Salvador [...]

Flickr user Eric Fischer has done something very interesting. By accessing the geolocation information in photos uploaded to Flickr and Picasa, he’s been able to map out the locations that tend to be photographed by locals and those that tend to be photographed by tourists. Blue dots are for locals (people who have taken pictures [...]

A photo from last week’s evening walk through downtown LA. The rest of the downtown LA at night photoset is over on Google+/Picasa, and is visible even if you don’t use G+.

It was a uniquely clear night in Los Angeles, so I thought I’d try to get a shot of the full moon. Taken March 8, 2012, at 11:06pm. Speaking of full moons, here’s a fun piece from the archives: Real Life Werewolves? Dog Bites and Full Moons

It’s already starting to feel like summer in Los Angeles. Taken Sunday, February 26, 2012 in Santa Monica, CA.

One of our regular spots when my shooting partner and I head out to take photos is the Rodeo Drive area of Beverly Hills. If nothing else, the window displays usually give us lots of variety and interesting lighting to work with. And they change often enough that there’s always something new. Lately, I’ve noticed [...]

Wandering around Century City last week, I thought I’d try to do a vertical panorama – 6 shots taken in vertical succession – rather than the more typical horizontal style. I really like the fish-eye style effect that it created. Click to enlarge, and as always, the rest of my photos can be found on [...]

I don’t typically like such “overbaked,” overprocessed photos. But I sort of like how this photo, taken last week at Venice Beach, came out.