num_pages: 132
description: "On the Nature of Things" commemorates a photojournalistic genius whose passion for his subject has rarely been equalled and whose pioneering techniques continue to define contemporary science/technological photography. Accompanied by commentary from Nobel prize-winning scientists, Goro's extraordinary images create a work of expertise and enchantment. For almost fifty years, Fritz Goro gave "Life" magazine readers of all ages an eyewitness view of the greatest scientific and technological breakthroughs of our time. The splitting of the atom; the deciphering of DNA; the invention of the hologram; the coming of fiber optics, lasers, computers, microsurgery--these are only a handful of the momentous discoveries he captured in his consummately innovative photography, providing an intimate look at the way new phenomena work and revealing as never before the infinite shapes and dazzling lights and colors that comprise the universe. It was Goro who went on-site with the Manhattan Project, actually standing on ground zero while it was still radioactive from the A-bomb test; who first photographed blood circulation in living animals; who documented a minute quality of plutonium as it was being produced, thus marking a milestone of the nuclear age; who captured a fetal image so hauntingly universal, it became the inspiration for the Starchild in Stanley Kubrick's film "2001." Perhaps most remarkable of all, he photographed the first model of explanation of the atom. Photographing subjects that were sometimes abstract and often evasive, Goro became a master of technical improvisation; in order to translate atomic physics visually, he used four lenses of different focal lengths, rotatedthe film position fifteen times, and made a total of thirty-three different exposures one one sheet of eight-by-ten color film. Nearly a decade after his death, Aperture accords Fritz Goro the tribute he so richly deserves with the first comprehensive collection of his landmark work. More than a handsome book of 159 photographs, "On the Nature of Things" draws the reader into the environment of each depicted breakthrough with an immediacy intensified by the comments of eminent scientists--all international leaders in their respective fields, many of whom worked closely with Goro while he was visualizing their great achievements. Among them are Dr. Lennart Nilsson of Stockholm, one of the greatest of all medical photographers; Professor Ilya Prigogine, Nobel laureate in rotating chemical reactions; Professor Glenn Seaborg, Nobel prize-winner in medicine, neurology professor David Hubel; and Oliver Sacks, neurologist and celebrated author of "Awakenings" and "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat." Anthropologist Stephen Jay Gould, one of the most widely read scientific writers of our time, supplies an introduction; while Goro's grandsons, Thomas, Peter, and Stefan Goreau, all respected scientists, contribute to a biographical essay. Beautiful, startling, enlightening, "On the Nature of Things" shines with a rare fascination.
language: English
title: On the Nature of Things: The Scientific Photography of Fritz Goro
titlecomplete: On the Nature of Things: The Scientific Photography of Fritz Goro
ratings_count: 1
publisher: Aperture