THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 8, 1994 TAG: 9409070072
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KEITH MONROE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
THE IMAGES ARE striking, the colors vivid. A pewter geodesic dome, each hexagonal section precisely defined. Two orbs - one lunar blue, the other solar white - float against a black sky. Finally, a shimmering array of mirrored ball bearings whose shot-silk surfaces reflect fans of fire and ice.
These are just three of Dr. Wutian Wu's award-winning photographs, but they are not what they appear to be. In fact, Wu is a nature photographer. Or rather, microphotographer. The natural objects he captures on film are too small to be seen by the unaided eye. He works not just with Polaroid and Nikon cameras but with powerful light microscopes and scanning electron microscopes.
The geodesic dome is actually the eye of a fly. The night and day planets are two types of neuron from the brains of rats - those neurons control the day and night cycle of the animal's body. Finally, the gleaming bearings are crystals of a substance essential to brain chemistry - ciliary neurotrophic factor.
``Crystals are good subjects,'' said Wu. ``They catch the light, and you can see three dimensions.''
Microphotography is Wu's avocation, but he earns his living as a research professor of neurosurgery and anatomy at Eastern Virginia Medical School. He's 40 and earned a medical degree in his native China. Eight years ago, he came to America to seek a Ph.D. in biomedical science at EVMS. After receiving the degree in 1991, he remained to conduct research into the mechanism of neuronal death - that is, how and why nerves die.
As he's worked toward understanding that problem, Wu has taken pictures - often to illustrate his work. He sees no dichotomy between science and art. Both require intuition and the ability to bring the unseen to light. Both define good work on the basis of aesthetic criteria - beauty, symmetry, order, simplicity, elegance.
Wu is rail thin with a quick smile and bright eyes. He spends his days in a lab coat rather than an artist's smock, in a utilitarian lab rather than a loft, but his pursuit of scientific truths nevertheless produces an aesthetic byproduct - photographic images of unexpected beauty.
Wu comes by his aesthetic sensibility honestly. His father is a retired teacher of Chinese language and literature who had an interest in art. ``And two of my brothers teach art in the university. Both of them have a master's degree in art.'' One is a painter in oils, the other a print maker.
For the last four years, Wu has won awards in microphotography contests sponsored by Nikon and Polaroid. And when a paper of his appeared in the journal Experimental Neurology, one of his photos was selected as that issue's cover art. The Nikon contest is judged on the basis of originality, informational content, technical proficiency and visual impact.
To capture these images, Wu uses a Nikon light microscope that permits very fine adjustments and manipulations.
``You can change a filter to create a different color. You can use a polarized filter to make 3-D images. You can control the light to create a dark field or a bright field. You can control the placement of the image to compose the photograph.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
Dr. Wutian Wu and examples of his work
by CNB