Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen, Switzerland

Also part of the PSI magazine 5232 assignment, but a different brief: research components shot as product objects, circuit boards, connectors and measurement modules, each isolated on a coloured background. As still life photography for PSI, the approach sits closer to product work than to documentation. The institute’s instruments are unusual objects; the colour treatment acknowledges that without explaining it.

PSI designs and builds much of the hardware for its large research facilities itself. The objects came from that in-house production, among them ground copper discs from the SwissFEL linear accelerator and quadrupole magnets. For PSI, this still life photography meant lighting each component in the studio like a product, against a saturated background. Form and texture carry the picture instead of the function.

Part of our Still Life work.