An open letter (rant) to photographers, art directors, and editors

I've yet to visit a lab where the walls and equipment were glowing purple. Or red. Or blue. Or fuschia....

So why do we continue to run pictures of labs bathed in colored light that makes them look like Willy Wonka threw up in them?

We've all done it. We've overdone it. It's cliché. It doesn't make the researcher or the lab look high-tech; it makes them look like a bad music video from 1982.

The culprits are called color gels. The photographer tapes a few onto his lights, and presto! Instant scientific credibility:

---

This orange fluid I'm putting in this beaker sure looks high-tech. And maybe hazardous. I hope I don't drop it.

---

Now that my office is purple, I can really get some stuff done. Like posing for this picture. Is my smile okay? Is it?

---

Is THIS what's causing my ceiling to be purple? Here, let me turn this damn thing off.

---

The Teknai EDAX X-ray spectrometer. Without purple lights: expensive. With purple lights: priceless.

---

The man who took this photo was planning to become a scientist, until he found out that the labs look like this. He killed himself four months later.

---

So next time the color gels come out, remember this: