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Berenice smiled in warm appreciation, but she talked about other photographs of science and other issues. For nearly twenty years, she had lusted after an opportunity to photograph physics. Finally, in 1957, she realized her dream. "It was work I wanted to do more than anything."

She described each photograph as an "experiment." As she described her photographs of wave motion, she could have been describing her work on a scientific project. She tried and discarded one approach after another, always working to understand. Every detail mattered, from the light source to the purity of the water to the shape of the glass tray. In the end, her famous photographs of waves in a pan of water were taken without a normal camera. She just put the photographic paper under the glass wave tank and exposed it briefly with special lighting she devised. As she talked I felt the thrill of her discoveries.

She said, "None of it was easy, but the subject, physics, was so fascinating. I could have worked on these photographs forever." I asked her why she didn’t continue.

"The pictures were for the book you used in high school. When the book was finished, they told me the project was finished. I resigned, but I later learned that they gave the job of taking more photographs to my assistant." Her voice ached as she told me this story and I ached and marveled at the stupidity of an organization that could turn away greatness. It was unsaid, but I thought and she thought, that a man might have continued longer.

I told Berenice that although no one else might give her credit for it, she was a successful scientist. She laughed and asked me how that could be so. "Because scientists try to understand nature, and when they think they have understood something new or in a new way, they explain it to others. That is what you have done." Her images say a lot with a little; they show the essence of physics. As she must have sensed when she wrote her manifesto, her style of photography was perfectly suited to making images of physics.

It was time for me to leave. We hugged each other. I said good-bye to Susan and began the drive back to Boston. For those two brief days I looked at the world through the eyes of one of the greatest photographers of the twentieth century. I like to think that she saw it through the eyes of a young scientist. Across generations and professions, we were connected by a fascination with the physical world and a drive to understand it.

A year later I called Berenice. She had been ill, but she insisted that I come to Monson again. This time I brought a book of photographs of the Flatiron Building in New York City. The frontispiece was a photograph by Berenice Abbott with commentary by Elizabeth McCausland. Sparkling eyes and an outstretched hand greeted my arrival, but Berenice was too weak to stand. She had not seen the book before and glowed at the sight of her own work on the first page. Then as she read, I thought I noticed tears in her eyes. After some minutes, she looked up at me and said, "The year 1965 was the saddest year of my life." I guessed somehow but didn’t know for sure that it was the year of Elizabeth McCausland’s death. I had not realized that she and Berenice Abbott were companions for many years.

The visit was a very quiet one. Berenice tired easily. Conversations were simple and short with long pauses for rest. It was the last time I saw Berenice; she died six months later.

In 1995, I spoke about my work in New York City, her city. I showed new computer graphics of a voyage through our backyard in the universe. As the images of thousands of real galaxies swept across the enormous screen of the auditorium, I could feel the awe of the crowd. It was thrilling to communicate so clearly with an image.

Alone in my hotel room, I heard Berenice Abbott’s voice telling me, "If you want people to understand galaxies, you have to show them galaxies." Of course, she was right.

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