Thanks to advanced new digital technologies, people are taking astronomically large numbers of photographs every year. Digital cameras store light by translating color information into numbers, which can be manipulated by computer processors. With traditional film, light scores special material or image sensors. Traditional film processing involves chemical manipulation, by which negative images are inverted to produce positive, recognizable images. Up until the 1960s, most professional photography and all amateur photography was done in black and white. Today, with a plethora of photographic and video tools available even to the consumer, black and white is far less popular. That being said, some people still enjoy the look of black and white images--particularly for prestigious events, such as weddings or family photographs. Scientists often use photography to capture images not visible to the naked eye. Radiologists, for example, take penetrating x-rays to glimpse into the body's inner workings. Astronomers, similarly, take photographs of the far universe by reading the gamma ray signals emitted by bursts from long dead stars. Police use infrared photography to spy on criminals by photographing their heat signatures. Even molecular physicists employ photography of a sort to catch a glimpse of the behavior of fast moving subatomic particles. When powerful superconducting supercolliders smash together protons and neutrons, pictures are taken of the resultant quarks that spiral off and disappear within fractions of a second. New kinds of photographic images emerge all the time, thanks to improved resolution and digital technologies. |
