photosynthesis

Public Lab, also known as the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science, is all about creating affordable, DIY versions of expensive scientific equipment. In the past, we covered Public Lab's work creating a balloon mapping toolkit that allowed anyone and everyone to take and add user-created weather balloon imagery to Google Earth's repertoire.

For their most recent project, they're bringing things a little closer to the ground. This time, the folks at Public Lab are photographing the secret internal life of plants using an extremely affordable near-infrared camera they've designed.

Here’s a short news segment on artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey that …

Photographer Binh Danh observed one summer that there was a difference in color between grass under a water hose and the grass directly exposed to sunlight. He then began to experiment with combining photography with photosynthesis, and came up with what he calls "chlorophyll prints" -- photographs printed onto leaves using the sun.