The publication provides a comprehensive survey on a genre of photography that has always oscillated between scientific precision and artistic fantasy. It examines works by modern artists as well as contemporary art photography inspired by the microcosm’s world of forms. The book includes works produced in a purely scientific context but on a high aesthetic level, before microphotography was appropriated by the avant-garde and raised to the rank of art.Ranging from Robert Koch’s images of bacteria and studies by Alfred Ehrhardt and Carl Strüwe to the scanning electron microscope photographs taken by the Becher student Claudia Fährenkemper, the book gathers together an extensive panorama of fascinating pictures that reveal what the naked eye cannot see. Exhibition schedule: Museum für Fotografie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung Berlin, October 1, 2010–January 9, 2011