Berenice Abbott - Scientific Work

Scientific Work

Abbott's style of straight photography helped her make important contributions to scientific photography. In 1958, she produced a series of photographs for a high-school physics text-book, including the cover titled Bouncing ball in diminishing arcs. Some of her work from this era is displayed at the MIT Museum in Cambridge, MA, until December 31 2012.

Not only was Abbott a photographer, but she also started the "House of Photography" in 1947 to promote and sell some of her inventions. These included a distortion easel, which created unusual effects on images developed in a darkroom, and the telescopic lighting pole, known today by many studio photographers as an "autopole," to which lights can be attached at any level. Owing to poor marketing, the House of Photography quickly lost money, and with the deaths of two designers, the company closed.

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