July 8, 2006
From the desk of Jane Galt:Hee
Oh, Derek, how do I love thee . . .
After seeing a recent in-house promotional brochure, I'd like to issue a brief request on behalf of my fellow researchers. This is addressed to all professional photographers: please, no more colored spotlights. I know that you see this as a deficiency, but scientists do not work with purple radiance coming from the walls behind them. Not if we can help it, we don't, and if we notice that sort of thing going on, we head for the exits. In the same manner, our instruments do not, regrettably, emit orange glows that light our faces up from beneath, not for the most part, and if they start doing that we generally don't bend closer so as to emphasize the thoughtful contours of our faces. When we hold up Erlenmeyer flasks to eye level to see the future of research in them, which we try not to do too often because we usually don't want to know, rarely is this accompanied by an eerie red light coming from the general direction of our pockets. It's a bad sign when that happens, actually. I know that your photos have lots more zing and pop the way you do them. And I'm sorry, for you and for the art department, that our labs are all well lit (with boring old fluorescent lights, yet), and that we all wear plain white lab coats (which tend to take over the picture), and that our instrument housings are mostly beige and blue and white. It would be a lot easier on you guys if these things weren't so. But that's how it is. And when you get right down to it, you're actually doing us a disservice by trying to pretend that there's all sorts of dramatic stuff going on, that discoveries are happening every single minute of the day and that they're accompanied by dawn-of-a-new-era lighting and sound effects. We'd rather that people didn't get those ideas, because the really big discoveries aren't like that at all. It doesn't make for much of a cover shot, but if one of us ever does manage to change the world, it'll start with a puzzled glance at a computer screen, or a raised eyebrow while looking at a piece of paper. Instead of getting noisier, everything will get a lot quieter. And if there are any purple spotlights to be seen, we won't even notice them. . .Posted by Jane Galt at July 8, 2006 1:11 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links
I like!
Then again, given that a large portion of scientific research is publicly funded through some or another means, it's probably NOT wise to portray scientists as dreary lab-coat types who make discoveries by staring at a piece of paper under an excess of fluorescent light. If folks think you are both boring AND goofing around on their dime, they might decide to rescind it.
And why do the lab coats never have acid burns?
Which is not to say that a photographer doing corporate work should never use a purple spotlight. My father took pictures of the first triall run of aluminum foil pie plates for the aluminum producer which developed the press to form them. That purple spotlight really made the edges of the stacked output much more impressive.
Why are the labcoats always so white? Don't acid burns occur any more?
Don't acid burns occur any more?
I think OSHA forbids it.
I leave you to reflect on the likely consequences for the rate of scientific progress.
My labcoat isn't too sightly, actually, but we do have a laundry service to take care of them here at the Wonder Drug Factory. But one reason they're always so white in the pictures is (as some of my commentors have pointed out) that many of these people in them never spend any time in the lab.
BTW, this post made my day. My wife would like to appeal to your sense of property rights, though.
Mom's an RN and can't stand to watch hospital dramas, Dad was a c-130 pilot USAF, couldn't watch any war movies, hated the inaccuracies.
So I have training and experience in engineering, law, banking, and the Marines. You can imagine how many movies are spoiled for me. The only trick I have hit upon is to pretend that the movie is occurring in a parallel universe where the laws of physics are slightly different.
What does Scientific Progress sound like?
It sounds like some nerd saying "That's funny..."
The only trick I have hit upon is to pretend that the movie is occurring in a parallel universe where the laws of physics are slightly different.
Only slightly? We must not be watching the same movies.
Small changes in the laws of physics can have huge practical consequences. Sometimes it's really hard to deduce just what the laws of physics are in some movies.
No ricochets? Weapons that never need reloading? Banking turns in outerspace? (Loops in outer space are accounted for by the "gravity hook" that Timothy Zahn wrote into his Star Wars sequels.) Cars that obviously have flammable liquid hydrocarbons built into their frames? (And some that ignite when the car goes off the cliff but before it hits bottom?) --And these are only a few.
Small changes in the laws of physics can have huge practical consequences.
You may appreciate this site:
http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/
That's why I like mountain-climbing movies -- I don't know anything about mountain climbing. I love "Cliffhanger."
My professor in grad school had a standard pose whenever he had to have a picture taken. He'd grab a screwdriver and apply it to a ventilation slot in a piece of equipment that wasn't plugged in. Anyone seeing the picture could deduce his contempt for the whole thing. No photographer ever complained.
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