Gross Specimen Photography

An introduction to photography in general... and gross specimen photography in particular

"An introduction to photography in general and gross specimen photography in particular" was compiled and written by Ed Uthman, MD .

At its birth about 1824, photography as practiced by its first devotee, Joseph Nicephore Niepce, was a messy, all- consuming pursuit that made use of such substances as bitumen of Judaea, lavender oil, and pewter. Today, chemical, mechanical, and electronic technology has made photography a neat, transparent, facile technique which we may easily apply to another messy, all-consuming pursuit: gross anatomic pathology. Despite the amount of automation available in photography, it is important to grasp a few general principles, so that we may use to our advantage a few powerful controls we have over the photographic environment.

The main considerations in gross photography are exposure, focus, image size, composition, color balance, and film selection.

Copyright (c) 1995, Edward O. Uthman. This document may be freely distributed. It may be reformatted for purposes of compatibility. It may be freely used for personal and educational purposes, but it may not be used for commercial purposes without prior written consent of the author. It may be included in toto or in part as components of other documents with proper attribution.