Customer Rating: 
Summary: Not what I expected
Comment: This book is not a coffee table book of Frankel's amazing pictures, it is basically a textbook of her techniques. The pictures are not the focus. The focus is on instruction- creation, exposure, color, composition, and the like. I'm not a photographer, and really couldn't care less about that stuff. I just wanted a book of her work. If I had looked at this book in a bookstore first, I would not have bought it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very useful book for scientists
Comment: I had the opportunity to hear Ms. Frankel at the Materials Research Society meeting and bought the book as a consequence of her talk. Certainly, having heard some of the stories about some of the pictures helps make the book more alive, but I am convinced the book would still be a 5 star one without that advantage.Ms. Frankel does a good job covering the basics of photography (mostly film, but some digital). She spends a lot of time talking about how to use the image and construct the image to tell the story. My observation is that scientists often don't do a good job getting the image and the story out in a terribly effective way. From the perspective of using images to tell a story (particularly a technical story), this book is by far the best resource I've seen on that subject. I strongly recommend the book to scientists working with images and to those interested in journalism about science.
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Summary: Simply wonderful
Comment: This is at least two different books. The first is simply in the pictures themselves. Frankel's photography complements, even improves the quality of the science with which she works. The scientist's goal is to make new knowledge available, and Frankel has unique talent in doing this visually.The second book lies in the text around these beautiful pictures. This is an introductory guide to scientific photography. The text will work for a novice as well as a photographer experienced in other kinds of images.
Above all, this is a book about communication - about visual presentation of knowledge. In a chapter of his own, the book's designer makes it clear that the book itself is an example of visual communication.
Perhaps some people think that art and science are somehow opposed to each other. I think such people just don't understand either. This book shows that art and science are complements, perhaps just different ways of finding and sharing new truths.
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Summary: 100 years from now, we'll be talking about this book
Comment: I first read about this book in the New York Times, and I agree with Mandelbrot's observation that it's a "masterpiece." Frankel's work will have a tremendous impact, not just on science, but on art, design, architecture, aesthetics, and the way we view the world.
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Summary: Science will never be the same
Comment: Frankel is the Muybridge and Edgerton of the new century. Anyone who reads this arresting book will never see science--or life--quite the same. Life is more exquisite and magical than we know, and thanks to her, we are able to see just how. She gives us privileged views of worlds that we could never see without her help. This book, and her previous volume "On the Surface of Things," are must-haves for any thinking person.
