PHO150 Digital Photography: Harold Edgerton

Harold Doc Edgerton's stop-action stroboscopic flash photographs - the spiked diadem of a milk-drop splash, the path of a bullet, a hummingbird's wings - are considered wonders of both art and science. For decades these amazing images poured out of MIT's Strobe Alley, Doc's name for his lab rooms and the corridor into which so many of his experiments seemed to spill. Previous accounts of this work have focused on the artistic quality of these images. Seeing the Unseen differs in its dual focus on the life and the science of this teacher/entrepreneur whose native curiosity led him to fashion imaginative means of stopping time to investigate the details of natural phenomena.

A collection of some of the world's most famous stop-action photographs taken by Harold Edgerton (1903-1990), the late MIT scientist who invented the electronic flash.

American photography from the turn of the century through the mid-1960s offers one of the richest and most coherent traditions in the history of the medium. This book explores that tradition in depth through superb reproductions of 183 photographs from the outstanding collection of The Museum of Modern Art." Major figures, such as Paul Strand, Edward Weston, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Harry Callahan, and Robert Frank, are each represented by six or more photographs. Dozens of other distinguished photographers are included as well, and many remarkable but unfamiliar pictures join the landmark works.

Featuring 250 photographs by over 150 different artists, this book surveys fine art photography in American throughout the 20th century.