Genre 4: Out of Sight: Pictures of Hidden Worlds

Out of Sight: Pictures of Hidden Worlds by Seymour Simon
SeaStar Books, 2000
ISBN 1-58717-012-4

Summary:
Simon uses images captured by various forms of magnifying technology to show readers views we cannot see with the naked eye. Each image is accompanied by text that not only explains the subject being photographed, but also explains the technology capable of capturing the image.

Critical Analysis:
Simon is a noted author of non-fiction science books for children, often writing about outer space. In Out of Sight, much of the book focuses instead on inner space, worlds too tiny to see or worlds enclosed in the human body, while the last chapters show Earth and heavenly bodies as seen from space. In an unexpected take on our visual limitations, Simon also includes a chapter titled "Hidden Worlds of Time" showing events too fast for our eyes to see.
Having taught photography for a number of years, I may be biased, but I find this book magnificent. The sheer number of technologies needed to supply the photos is testimony to humans' inventive creativity: scanning electron micrographs (SEMs), microscopes, endoscopes, tonograms, CAT scans, arteriograms, thermograms, electronic strobe photography, satellites, infrared photography, and telescopes. Although the focus is on the images, I learned about technologies I previously did not know existed.
Part of the fun is guessing what the beautiful color photos are before reading the text. Bug heads magnified 26x or 57x are not too difficult to figure out, but viruses and Velcro take a bit more imagination.
For me, the most amazing image in the whole book is one captured in a "bubble chamber" showing the paths of subatomic particles "many times smaller than the period at the end of this sentence." The text explains that the particles are too tiny and too fast to be seen with any of our technology, so scientists study the particles' paths as they travel through a heated and pressurized liquid, leaving behind a trail of bubbles. The image the trails produce does not look like anything we would expect to find in nature; instead, it resembles a joyful, fantastical drawing created by an artist with a fistful of markers.

Review Excerpts:
Amazing photomicrographs of objects too small to be seen with the unaided eye are sometimes colored or enhanced by computer to reveal intricate patterns and complex images. Seymour clearly explains both the processes used to capture these tiny or hidden entities-some in our own bodies, some in the world around us-and the structures the photography allows us to understand better."

Judy O'Malley, ALA Book Links, Dec./Jan. 2000-2001, v.10, no.3

"Simon directs his readers' attention to images of "hidden worlds," a phrase that he interprets broadly. A picture of a spiked virus, invisibly small before the invention of electron microscopes, is here enlarged to extend beyond the boundaries of the large, double-page spread. The inside of a human heart is seen through an endoscope using fiber-optic tubes. A bullet, caught in the flash from an electronic strobe, is photographed at the instant when it rips through a playing card. An infrared photo, taken from the Landsat satellite and color enhanced by computer, shows details of the Nile River Delta. A picture of Jupiter's red spot, photographed by a passing spacecraft, reached Earth via radio waves. At times the text seems torn between discussing what we are seeing and explaining how the image was made. More emphasis on technique would have made this a stronger, more coherent book, but anyone who comes across it will happily browse through the intriguing and sometimes awesome pictures collected in this handsome volume."

Carolyn Phelan, Booklist, Oct 1, 2000, v97 i3

Connections:

• Use in science class to introduce microscopes or viruses; in physics class, introduce subatomic particles; in geography, look at river deltas.
• Use magnifying glasses to examine common items. What do you notice using magnification that you don't otherwise notice? Draw small parts of what you see and have your friends guess what it is.
• Research the Hubble Telescope. What is its purpose? What have we learned from it?
• Use zoom lenses to photograph parts of common objects. Be sure to use the principles of good composition. How does extreme close-up photography affect the visual value of a photograph?