Scientific Photographer Felice Frankel Talks Learning Science from Photos at Cambridge Public Library

Science photographer Felice Frankel, a recipient of the Guggenheim grant, presented her new book, “Phenomenal Moments: Revealing the Hidden Science Around Us,” at the Cambridge Public Library on Wednesday evening.

Frankel, a former research fellow at Harvard, said she wrote the book — a collection of her photographs of nature and scientific explanations of the scenes — to help young people understand science. The event was a collaboration between Harvard Book Store, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ Sciences division, the Harvard Library, and the Cambridge Public Library.

“My intent is to get young people to look at the world and not be afraid,” Frankel told the audience of 40. “They don’t understand that everything is scientific.”

Frankel is well known for her ability to capture scientific phenomena in photographs. One particular image of magnetic fluid before a yellow backdrop was made into a poster by the National Science Foundation and so widely reproduced that Frankel told the New York Times in 2007 that she was “sick of it.”

“Phenomenal Moments,” published in November, is Frankel’s tenth book.

Frankel began the event with a slideshow presentation, where she displayed partial versions of her photographs and asked the audience to guess what the uncropped image would show.

One photo initially looked like a rainbow before Frankel revealed the full image to be the oxidized bottom of a pan. Frankel said her book helps explain scientific principles such as oxidation.

After her presentation, Frankel was joined on stage by Melissa Franklin, a Harvard Physics professor and Director of Graduate Studies, for an interview and an audience Question and Answer session.

Frankel explained that while she did not have an advanced degree in the field, she has been able to capture visuals that interrogate scientific questions.

“Science was part of my life even as a child, I remember being curious about why something is looking the way it is,” she said.

Frankel is currently a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a researcher at MIT’s department of Chemical Engineering.

Unlike traditional photography projects, many of the published images in “Phenomenal Moments” were shot on an iPhone or image scanner, Frankel said. For those who aspire to science photography, Frankel said the key is narrowing in.

“Focus on one thing that you’re looking at and take a real good look at that around what else is going on there, because all that other stuff is in the way, and your pictures are probably too complex,” Frankel said.

“It’s focusing literally and metaphorically on the subject of what you’re trying to say,” she added.

Copies of Frankel’s book were offered for purchase as patrons walked out of the theater. Frankel signed the copies of all who asked.