Journeys in Microspace: The Art of the Scanning Electron Microscope

Rating:
Summary: Its a Small World
Review: The work that Ms. Breger present in her electrifying and illuminating book spans that twilight zone between photography made with purely aesthetic vision and imagery made for the purposes of scientific investigation. For my part, if a type of imagery carries a wonderful vision and powerful presence no matter what precincts it hales from, it warrants serious and critical attention.

The photographs in this book come from a visual realm that roughly parallels Egerton, Nilsson, et al. It is work made with a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM).

Whether or not you are familiar with this imaging technology -- its processes and procedures are not all that recondite, is not overly material as they are really not actually at issue.. The rendering though, is. The end product if done in the hands of an expert, as Dee Breger has wide renown for being, is in a rich, etched -- in effect, and extremely beguiling continuous-tone sharply scaled monotone.

The photographs focus mainly on exo-skeletal microorganisms and organic and inorganic microstructures. That's what you look at when you view one of these sorts of images -- and they are very arresting and strangely alluring ones indeed. The identifiability of subject matter is not in itself, I feel, the source of their quite haunting power. And, it is indeed arguable as to how critical the related data is, interesting as many , including myself, would find it.

The subject matter goes beyond naming and claiming. It is about the enigmatic nature of the fundamental, and the inchoate, the substrates of experience. Platonisn (Neo- & Oldo-), in one form or another, is the operant mode in this sort of representation. The subsuming issues are epistemological in addition to the esthetic and experiential.

Photographically, Dee's antecedents, on one hand, might be Blossfeld and Regner-Patzch -- the Platonisn thing. And, other the other hand, Weston and Strand (The thing itself -- the world being intrinsically more interesting that what anyone can say about it...). Strong resonances too with the archetypal inventories of the Bechers and the mysterious little chthonic worlds of Chiarenza.

That's more than enough for the high falutin' stuff. I guess the brass tacks of the matter is that these images are point blankly speaking, striking They bear a drama, mystery and presence that definitely command the attention of both a general inquisitive audience and those critically interested in photography, how ever unusual or unexpected its manifestation.