I Called My Thesis This Because the F-Word Was Unacceptable in the Original Title That I Presented to the University Library

Abstract

My early work consisted of highly aestheticized photographs of natural objects taken in extreme close-up. Working as a self-described scientist, I used an unusual macro camera lens (Canon MP-E 65mm) to achieve high magnification of my subject, which I isolated from disruptive vibrations in a home "lab" of sorts. The emerging patterns in backlit leaves replicated abstract satellite imagery and introduced me to the idea of fractal patterns, naturally occurring repeating patterns similar at any viewed scale. Think of the similarities between the veins in your body, the neurons in your brain, and the tributaries of a river, all three form dendritic fractals, but at massively different scales from the micrometer, the millimeter, and the kilometer, respectively. Dendrite itself is a term originating from the Greek word dendron, meaning tree; trees too share this pattern in both their branches, roots, and in the leaf structures that my original study explored.