Faces of Science: Portraits - Hardcover

Cook, Mariana Ruth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393061183 ISBN 13: 9780393061185

Publisher: W. W. Norton, 2005

Synopsis

An intimate look at the people behind some of the great discoveries of our time.

Here a renowned photographer turns her camera on some of the greatest men and women of the scientific community. The seventy-seven extraordinary portraits included in Faces of Science make their subjects accessible to us and less formidable than they may have seemed in the past. Each image is paired with a short autobiographical essay explaining how the scientist became interested in his or her chosen field. The combination of word and image illuminates the individual character of each scientist, from Francis Crick and Richard Leakey to Miriam Rothschild and Mary Eubanks. It also reveals some of what they have in common: intellectual curiosity, a desire to help mankind, and an ability to work with others to accomplish their tasks. Faces of Science is both an inspiration and a confirmation of the human spirit. 85 duotone photographs

About this title

About the Authors

Mariana Ruth Cook previous books include the much-acclaimed Mothers and Sons and Fathers and Daughters. She lives in New York City.

Gerard Piel was the founding editor of Scientific American.

Reviews

Cook, whose books of photographs include Fathers and Daughters and Couples, turns her camera on 77 scientists who have answered important questions about the nature of the physical world. Each remarkable image is paired with a brief autobiographical essay.

Editors of Scientific American

Scientists are supposed to be skull-beneath-the-skin types, peering into telescopes or microscopes in order to glimpse the eternal nature of things. In these black-and-white portraits of some eighty eminent researchers, a photographer tries peering back. The result is a fascinating study of the gaze, albeit from a reverse angle. There's the archeologist with the arched, combable eyebrows, the neutrino guy with the in-on-the-cosmic-joke grin, the evolutionary biologist whose age-etched face emerges from the shadows as a play of silvery crescents, the superstring theorist with a bad-cop glower, the neuron whiz who looks like a bartender you'd spill your troubles to. The subjects have all contributed personal statements, and when you put those together you get a history of postwar science that's as immediate and unprettified as these portraits.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

Photography books about writers and artists abound, but rarely do we see images of the other creative tribe, scientists. Cook, whose earlier books focus on family relationships, became intrigued with scientists and their "extraordinary intelligence and their directness." With the assistance of Gerard Piel, formerly with Scientific American, Cook selected 77 luminaries as subjects. Piel provides a celebratory introduction to this grand portrait gallery of geniuses, and his eloquence is echoed in the thoughtful, moving essays provided by each of the scientists to accompany Cook's striking black-and-white portraits, each a magnetic and finely balanced composition. A number of Nobel Prize winners are present, including Francis Crick, Paul Berg (with dog), Murray Gell-Mann, and Freeman Dyson. Although most of Cook's elegant, vibrant photographs focus on her subjects' evocative visages, some create witty mise-en-scenes. E. O. Wilson sits cheerfully in a sea of fallen leaves. Plant biologist Mary Eubanks stands within a cornfield's embrace. Physicist Alan Guth balances on a stack of papers in a cluttered office. And each discoverer is at once undeniably distinguished and marvelously human. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: W. W. Norton
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393061183
• ISBN 13: 9780393061185
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 176