The International Images for Science Exhibition 2011

 An Exhibition of Scientific Photography

The Royal Photographic Society has a long and distinguished history in promoting the art and science of photography. Its International Print Exhibition was first held as long ago as 1854. In the early days, it included a Scientific and Technical section. However, over the years, scientific and technical photography has had a decreasing presence in the Exhibition, and is now regrettably altogether absent.

The International Images for Science Exhibition 2011 aims to redress this, inviting submissions from scientific photographers, researchers, engineers, technologists and scientists from all over the world, within The Society and without.

Society today is image-based, and there is no part of our daily lives that goes untouched by images. Advances that we take for granted have been made possible thorough scientific applications of imaging. They range from extreme microphotography, which is involved in the production of integrated circuits and electronic sensors on which all modern technology depends; to satellite imagery for earth resource investigations, and of course astronomy.

The list of scientific applications of photography is endless: micro and macro, UV and IR, time lapse and high speed, electron microscopy, thermography, fluorescein angiography, retinal photography, phase contrast microscopy, schlieren photography, kirlian photography, stress analysis … Since photography’s inception, its users have constantly extended its limits, applying it to recording and visualising that which human visual system cannot perceive. These range from minute objects too small to be seen by means of a microscope, to objects too far away to be seen by means of a telescope, and events that occur too rapidly or too slowly for us to visualise, while medical imaging heavily relies on the use of radiation beyond the visible. The old adage that necessity is the mother of invention has resulted in the discovery of new and better methods of recording images by invisible radiation, and through sophisticated instruments such as fiber optics, endoscopes, microscopes, telescopes, stereo microscopes, electron microscopes and ophthalmoscopes.

The exhibition will open in September 2011 at The Royal Photographic Society, Fenton House, Bath. Thereafter, a travelling exhibition will be available to various venues within the UK and overseas. Images from the Exhibition will be reproduced in a high quality glossy catalogue, giving extensive captions about each image. The exhibition will be available on the RPS website also.

On behalf of The Society I would like to thanks the following organizations for partly sponsoring this exhibition:

 The British Institute of Professional Photography

Science Photo Library

The Wellcome Trust

Creativity Backgrounds

Towergate Camerasure

Loxley Colour Lab

Paul Graham Imaging Specialists

Afzal Ansary ASIS FRPS
Co-Ordinator
International Images for Science Exhibition 2011