The photos below used as illustration I made around 1983.
I was pretty much disgusted of all that flammery people made up around the fantastic book of Lennart Nilsson: A Child is Born. These self-proclaimed critics were blabbering about special lenses, extra slim spectroscopes, and nothing has changed so far, we can still find arcticles like "Nilsson's Magic Lens".
The topic has just got in the highlight again, sadly, in the Interpress, which I used to be fond of.
When I saw Nilsson's best known photo on the cover of Digitális Fotó (Digital Photography),
I bought the magazin curiously, 'let's see, have any photographer at all noticed that something's wrong?' To my rejoice, István Dékán just couldn't have let it go.
Quote: "Lennart Nilsson's amazing photos were made inside the womb. To me it's all a mystery. Though I read the in the description, that they are made with an 'endoscope-camera', some questions popped into my head. First thing is the space. According to the photos, the 'models' are rounded by so many transparent space, that it's possible to make a photo with minimal deformation.
The second one is lightning. The foetus' are lit from different sides, just like in an atelier. Third is the composition. These photos are composed! This adds up to the fantastic effect as well. The solution obviously shouldn't be looked for among the photographical tricks, but the medical knowledge."
It was the moment I decided to publish my photos that were banished to the bottom-shelf for three decades, the leftover of an unfinished plan of a book of anatomy which is illustrated with photos instead of graphics, to reveal the mist and clear fact from fiction.
The quoted photo by Nilsson is a perfectly composed, emotionful piece of art, true cover-shot, but of course, it wasn't made inside the womb, nor it was made with an endoscope-camera. How could people assume that any art-friend mother would risk her 20 weeks old foetus, her child to be born for a nice book cover?
Let's take a look at this 45 years old (!) photo. Imagine the pregnant mother and think through everything we learned, heard or seen of anatomy ever. Then, think about how it could be made. Where is it possible to insert a photographic lens into the womb? And lightning for the backlight? Don't forget the caul and the amnionic liquid.
How come there are still people who believe these kind of photos are made inside the body, are 'intrauterin'?
Of course we cannot expect the watchers or readers to judge a nice photo by photographical lightning and anatomical aspects. As the editor, I would as well want to keep the fact these shots aren't intrauterin, but made of misborn embryos a low-profile. The book's text supports this as well, it's never perfectly accurate, but it's not a problem, it shouldn't be at all. There ain't but a few words about photographical techniques, and even that few are to misunderstand easily. I am going to show you though a piece which actually was made with an endoscope-camera later, but neither in that case can we be sure that the photo is 'in vivo', intrauterin.
In the hospital I was working, many came by me enthusiastically with the book, asking 'how was it made'? My experience is that especially among women readers popularity of the volume dropped dramatically when I informed them about the circumstances and the usage of the misborn foetus. The question 'so these are dead?' wasn't rear, which I could only respond to as: 'These are photos, and they are excellent!'. As the member of the audience, we shouldn't really be trying to look behind the scenes all the time, but enjoy the show.
If I wasn't asked the question, I tried to avoid informing everyone about these, since the more are informed about the process the body going through in a phase like this, the better it is, and it's actually much more important for the viewer, then the artistic background. Nowadays many movement's against abortion use these pictures, their arguments would be much more valid, if these photos were made actually in vivo. But as I'm speaking to the fellow professionals, I'll be objective, detached.
So let's talk about this 'magical lens'!
The point of hysteroscopy used in gynaecological examination is getting a clear view of the upper area of the womb's inside, which makes accurate investigetion possible to avoid later complications and infections. During the procedure there is a chance of getting a histological sample or even solving certain minor mutations at the spot, like removing the octopus. Diagnostical histeroscopy is usually done without narcotism, though it might require partly anesthesia injected to the cervix. The expanding required to insert the spectroscope is done with the speculum (see the picture). The fluid injected through the histeroscope or in the form of gas helps expanding the womb, so the side of the utero can be seen better.
As you can see, setting up studio-lights inside the womb would have it's aftermath due to the lack of space.
That's why intrauterin photographs made by a spectroscope can never contain artistic lights, the flat lightning resembles to the shots made with the flash connected to the top of the camera: motives nearby are overlit, the most far ones are underexposed. This can be understood, in knowledge how the light decreases in scale with the distance, and the fact we have no other source of light for clarification.
The sparkling of the wet surcafes in the front, and the strong vignetting of the lightsource that circles the lens is dominant on these pictures.
Foetoscopic photographs are similar, but differs in the method of inserting the spectroscope. Nowadays the optics are lead in under ultrasound controllation, but obviously these tools weren't available in 1965.
Authors always inform their readers about the risk of the procedure, that's the main reason they only use it for diagnostical purpose when the situation demands, or for getting the blood of the navel-cord, sometimes when serious womb damage is suspicious, in case for some reason the pathography is not unequivocal. Foetoscopy made in the first trimester today is usable for in vivo parent-cell transplant.
Of course, magical lenses do exist, in my opinion, the Oberkochen Zeiss lenses for the Hasselblad Nilsson were using all are. (You can charge me with partiality, but the perfect delineation on every level of focal length, the everlasting central shutter, the amazing reliability all made this brand outstanding, no wonder it was chosen to accompany the astronauts to the moon on the first journey). The largest portion of popular photos were made with Hasselblads. The excellent swedish manufacturer was constantly co-operating with Nilsson, helping him all the way, not with producing new lens systems, but with creating special extents to the already existing pieces. These extents made it possible to make the Hasselblad compatible with Karl Storz's medical appliances, so the photos shot during the examination could be seen in the consultations and the documentaries as well.
In the end, let me quote the author, Lennart Nilsson, who said the following words to Hasse Persson who was asking about his artistic methods:
"- Even if there was much praise for your Life reportage and for the various editions of A Child is Born, some people reacted against your use of aborted foetuses to describe foetus development. Has that criticism affected you?
- To be able to show the development of the foetus at all from the very earliest stage, I used macro-lenses and wide-angled special optics, manufactured specially for me by Karl Storz in Germany and Jungners Optiska in Stockholm. And for technical reasons related to photography, I had to use foetuses from what are called extrauterine pregnancies. But I have also shot living foetuses in the womb using an endoscope. These days, I work with ultrasound and three-dimensional pictures taken through the skin from outside the body. It is a tremendously exciting technique, although it still doesn't reach the same technical quality as my old pictures."
After we've seen, how they couldn't be made, let's see, how they actually could be made.
For the making of medical, scientific shots, the photographer has to apply special technique and follow a non-ordinary post-processing procedure, like macro- and micro-, infrared- and ultraviolet photography. This requires special equipment, lenses, filters, lightsources and filmprocessors. Quality result demands all these tools and procedures to be used the best for the given circumstances.
Inventiveness is another part of the photographer's toolkit, without it, the effect cannot be achieved even by spending tremendeous amount of money.
The photos published by me were made with a Minolta XD-7, on Kodak Ektachrome film, with macro lenses of 2.8 maximum aperture and 100 mm lens focal length. The flashes used for the lightning were partly studio flashes, which were manufactured by the Horiblitz, a hungarian brand with it's capital in the city of Eger, partly the self-made background table. The latter one consisted of an old Multiblitz journalist flash and an old wheeled tool-chest. From the inside of the chest I removed the shelves and replaced them with a reflective aluminium flake, to produce the most even reflecting surface.
I fixed the mounting of the Multiblitz to the backside (which I have previously drilled through), in a way the reflector would only spread light on the reflecting area, not towards the lens. I left the upper glass as it were, since it made the cleaning easier, but I've cut a hole in the headwall, which I inserted colored methacrylat flakes so I could manipulate the background color. I've put a sandblown sheet of glass under the color filter.
To reproduce the view of the womb's inside anatomically, I had to break the habits, I couldn't have just put the embryo on the glass, since it's hands and legs would take a non-natural angle anyhow. For positioning the foetus, I used a glass bath, which had a water circulation system in it, rotating the water all the time, which was necessary for supporting the opacity. Also I had to remove the small bubbles appearing on the skin, for this I used a small brush.
I've kept the embryo flowing and shot through the water, the filter made the background blue.
Besides all these things, practically it was a basic studio shot of an object, where mostly I've been in control of the lights. This way, I only had to set the position of the 'body', and fix it, so the photo I imagined in the first place could actually be just like I planned.
