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  • 5/19/2025
Cameras follow microphotographer Lennart Nilsson as he obtains spectacular footage of events, including a human egg cell during conception and a journey through the aorta.

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00:00Tonight on NOVA, explore the world through Leonard Nielsen's eyes and witness the wonder
00:08of the everyday.
00:10From a new view of a kiss, to a fresh look at a voice, to life from the inside, discover
00:21for the first time how Nielsen captures these amazing images.
00:26Legacy of Life concludes with the photographer's secrets.
00:33NOVA is funded by Merck.
00:46Merck, pharmaceutical research.
00:51Committed to preventing disease and improving health.
00:55Merck, committed to bringing out the best in medicine.
01:03And by Prudential.
01:06Living well isn't about being rich.
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01:20The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and viewers like you.
01:36The world of Leonard Nielsen is like no other.
01:39A world we never really knew until he showed us.
01:48For decades his photographs have introduced us to ourselves, beginning with a human egg
01:54cell and millions of sperm.
02:02He has shown us our own odyssey, from fertilized egg to embryo, and from embryo to fetus.
02:16Nielsen has become the premier chronicler of the processes of life.
02:35Working with medical teams around the world, Nielsen has become the premier chronicler
02:41of the processes of life.
02:51Using special cameras and lenses, he has revealed more of life's secrets than any other photographer.
03:07In 1965, Nielsen made history with this photo essay of life before birth.
03:16For the first and only time, all eight million copies of Life magazine sold out.
03:35But for years, Nielsen kept his own secrets.
03:44Until now, when, for the first time, he agreed to be filmed at work.
03:51To reveal his special techniques.
03:56Techniques that can capture a broken heart, that can take us through arteries, that can
04:07show us where billions of blood cells live and die, that can follow the path of a berry
04:19through the digestive system.
04:27Techniques that can take us down the larynx, toward the vocal cords, and into the windpipe.
04:43Techniques that can bring art to science, and science to art.
04:55There is nowhere, it seems, that Lennart Nielsen cannot go.
05:00But how does he do it?
05:02How does he reach the inaccessible and photograph the infinitesimal?
05:11The first of Nielsen's secrets is a specially designed camera that can film inside the body.
05:23Lennart Nielsen came to us many years ago, wanting very special lenses.
05:31His main criteria was that they had to be extremely small.
05:38At the same time, they had to have extreme resolution, a very sharp focus.
05:45Fortunately, he came at a good time, because we had just started making calculations on
05:52computers.
05:55The first lens required a stack of drawings this thick from the computer.
06:01But I got my lens.
06:03Here is one of them.
06:05It has a focal length just over two millimeters, and produces an extremely sharp picture.
06:15With this lens, it's like you're only a couple of millimeters yourself.
06:24You can be inside the body, even in a blood vessel, and take a completely normal picture,
06:31just as sharp and wide-angled as a normal camera would take.
06:35So you get to see everything.
06:39Today, one of Nielsen's special cameras is being used for medical research.
06:47The camera is a modified version of a surgical instrument called an endoscope.
06:57It consists of a thin steel tube with an advanced system of lenses inside.
07:05The first is a tiny lens that captures the image just like any normal camera lens.
07:12But then the image travels through a series of special cylindrical lenses.
07:17In spite of their length, they deliver a wide-angled image with everything in sharp focus.
07:25This is how Nielsen is able to guide us through the body.
07:34The first documentary to use Nielsen's endoscopic camera was Nova's Portrait of a Killer.
07:41A collaboration between Nielsen and Dr. Jan Lindberg, the film explored the realm of heart
07:47disease and stroke.
07:53There was a shot of a stroke victim's brain during a postmortem, and a cross-section image
08:03of the brain that highlighted the powerful carotid artery.
08:10But the breakthrough was this journey through an artery, without the use of computer animation.
08:22Here were the actual deposits of fatty plaque coating the artery walls.
08:30As in all his work, Nielsen sought to bring viewers inside the processes of life and death.
08:42The menace of cholesterol never seemed more palpable as when the camera moved through
08:47another vessel in an advanced state of calcification.
08:54As the vessel narrowed, the danger of a blood clot increased, a clot that could block the
09:00vessel entirely, cutting off the flow of blood.
09:12And finally, the portrait of the killer itself, coronary thrombosis, a large blood clot blocking
09:21an artery that supplied blood to the heart.
09:35But how can Nielsen's camera travel through blood vessels?
09:44How can one see anything inside an artery filled with blood?
09:49The answer is, one can't.
09:56So Nielsen filmed an aorta taken from a cadaver.
10:02The aorta was being studied by Nielsen's longtime colleague, Jan Lindberg.
10:10The sequence was filmed this way.
10:14The camera was mounted on a trolley that slowly moved the endoscope forward.
10:21Light came from lamps mounted above.
10:28And this was the result, a collaboration between medical science and scientific photography.
10:48Lennart Nielsen is really a scientific researcher.
10:56His work, in many cases, has been so explanatory and contributed in a way which led to certain
11:02types of investigations that I see him as one of us.
11:11He is so incredibly unique.
11:17He's a rare mixture of perfectionist and fanatic, combined with an inexhaustible curiosity and
11:24tenacity.
11:28Lennart is a true scientist.
11:35Twenty years after Portrait of a Killer, Nielsen has commissioned his most remarkable camera
11:40yet.
11:41Impossible.
11:42You remember two years ago.
11:43Yes.
11:44Mr. Nielsen's super wide-angle endoscope has a strongly vaulted surface.
11:58We took a standard fetoscope and changed the forward lenses.
12:04We made new calculations and used a special, highly refractive glass with an extremely
12:09curved radius.
12:15The endoscope's microscopic lenses had to be ground with extraordinary precision.
12:24The smallest ones are only a fraction of a millimeter long.
12:29So the pitch angle here is 160 degrees illiquid.
12:48Why do we make these lenses for Lennart Nielsen?
12:51Because we are convinced of his expertise and his pictures speak to a great many people.
12:57With these instruments, he'll be able to create fantastic pictures.
13:19Nielsen's own odyssey began in Sweden in 1922.
13:26His father was an innovator before him, a railroad engineer and inventor.
13:34He built his own radio.
13:39So Lennart grew up listening to the world.
13:46He built a photo enlarger as well and experimented with cameras.
13:51So Lennart grew up seeing the world through a lens and decided to become a photographer.
14:03Nielsen's patience was legendary.
14:06For months, he photographed the Salvation Army at work.
14:15He traveled throughout Sweden to capture the exact moment of salvation.
14:29He would go anywhere for a good assignment, even above the Arctic Circle, where he photographed
14:38hunters killing polar bears for the fur trade.
14:54The orphaned cubs would be sold to circuses and zoos.
15:09This picture of a fallen polar bear mother and her living cub lying there, hugging its
15:16mother, was in a four-page spread in Life magazine.
15:24The reaction was so intense in the U.S. that the school even closed in protest.
15:31When Life came out with the pictures, one reader wrote in, the Norwegians were good
15:37in the war, but these hunters ought to be shot.
15:46Lennart also became known for his portraits.
15:51Artist Henri Matisse, composer Igor Stravinsky, jazz legend Louis Armstrong and his wife,
16:10actress Rita Hayworth in Hollywood, and Ingrid Bergman in Rome.
16:25Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman, whom Nielsen photographed over the course of two
16:30years, tenacity has always been a Nielsen trademark.
16:41Here, he posed the entire company of a circus.
16:44It took a number of tries in several cities before he was finally satisfied.
16:54As Sweden's court photographer, Nielsen has also chronicled the royal family for almost
16:59sixty years.
17:02The present king, Karl Gustav, and before him, Gustav VI, and before him, Gustav V,
17:12in 1949.
17:16Nielsen's portraits have found their way onto postage stamps and onto currency.
17:27His microscopic portrait of a bee gathering honey.
17:38Someday his work may even be found outside the solar system.
17:46His portraits of a fetus are aboard the Voyager space probes.
18:00Nielsen first became known for his scientific work in the 1950s.
18:07Using a close-up lens and powerful flash, he documented the life of ants from their
18:13own perspective.
18:27His next project was a book about life at the bottom of the sea.
18:34A long line of unique photographs followed, the bones of the inner ear, a cloudy sky as
18:44seen by the eye, a section of the human brain, the valves of the heart, a variety of blood
19:03sounds.
19:19Some of his most famous shots were taken with a scanning electron microscope, another of
19:25the photographer's special techniques.
19:28This is a 70-million-year-old flower, less than a tenth of an inch long.
19:41Nielsen's scanning electron microscope can magnify up to 450,000 times.
19:52Instead of using light to illuminate these bacteria, it uses electrons.
19:58Inside the microscope, a small laser bombards the subject with a stream of electrons.
20:06The reflected particles are then read by a computer.
20:11Although the image is black and white, a special technique can add color later.
20:16It's just as exciting working with a scanning electron microscope as it is getting great
20:23shots at a football game or covering a really important story.
20:35This is a typical dendritic cell.
20:40As you can see, it's a bit larger than the lymphocytes up here.
20:45The subject has these large appendages, which can often stretch out very long.
20:56To sit with a researcher when he says, for example, here's a structure, why don't we
21:01try so-and-so?
21:05Why don't we tilt the slide so we'll see it from the other side, and then maybe we'll
21:10see something that will contribute a great deal to my studies?
21:15That is very gratifying.
21:20Nielsen's scanning electron microscope is among the most powerful in the world.
21:28It can image viruses which are one ten-thousandth of a millimeter.
21:40His eyes are so good that many times when we technicians were satisfied with something,
21:46he wasn't.
21:48And every time, we were forced back to find new solutions.
21:54And we did.
21:59For achievements stretching over decades, Leonard Nielsen has received photography's
22:04highest awards.
22:15His work has been exhibited in dozens of countries and appeared in dozens of books.
22:21I like your music, I like your violin.
22:30Yes.
22:31That was fantastic.
22:32I am a photojournalist and I record with cameras what is happening.
22:41He's a combination of a great photographer with the background and the interests of a
22:51scientist.
22:52That's an unbeatable accomplishment.
22:58Leonard Nielsen has blurred the boundaries between art and science, I think it can be
23:03fairly said, and performed a miracle of his own in making the invisible visible.
23:10Through his lens, human biology becomes marvelous abstract art.
23:25As an artist, Nielsen's reputation is secure.
23:30But he will always be remembered most as the man who revealed the miracle of life before
23:36In 1952, a Swedish photographer walked into the offices of Life Magazine to sell his pictures
24:03of Doug Hammarskjöld.
24:04While he was there, he showed the editor images for another possible piece, tiny bottles containing
24:15human embryos barely half an inch long.
24:18Forty years later, Leonard Nielsen is being recognized here tonight for his unique contribution
24:25to our understanding of ourselves.
24:31I remember that day at Life very well.
24:36They said, there's only one way.
24:39Surprise us.
24:42The world closes to yourself.
24:45Try to reveal it in a new way and we will love it.
25:01For some reason, we are going to do the fetus, the embryo, in order to show how early we
25:09become humans.
25:12We visited Professor Axel Engelmann Sundberg, at that time chief physician at the Zabatsberg
25:19Hospital.
25:20He loaned us a fetus, which was used in teaching.
25:27It had lain in formaldehyde for many years.
25:31I took close-ups and was amazed that they were so human, so early in their development.
25:46Then I had the opportunity to work with what is known as tubular pregnancies.
25:52I received phone calls from doctors at all hours of the day for many years, just in order
25:57to get a picture of an embryo inside a fallopian tube.
26:10I also photographed in 1964 at the hospital the world's first portrait of a fetus, alive
26:17in the mother's uterus.
26:22Determined to explore further the world of life before birth, Nielsen and his colleagues
26:32produced Nova's miracle of life, with one stunning image after another.
26:40A six-week-old embryo, floating inside the amniotic sac.
26:46A seven-week-old embryo, three-quarters of an inch long, its limbs and organs already
26:53developing, its tiny fingers able to move.
27:06Nielsen followed the path of growth from week to week.
27:10At seven weeks, the eye lenses were formed.
27:19At eight weeks, the skull bones were growing together.
27:30The fingers were well-defined, along with the toe joints.
27:40At ten weeks, the embryo was considered a fetus, and Nielsen was there for the graduation
27:47picture.
27:50Viewers could see the marked increase in movement.
27:54The beginnings of the ears, the vestiges of a tail.
28:02Nielsen's countdown continued.
28:06Nielsen's countdown continued.
28:10Eleven weeks.
28:13Twelve weeks, still only three inches long.
28:19Thirteen weeks.
28:26Fourteen weeks, able to bring its hands together, and even suck its thumb.
28:36Fifteen weeks, its sensory organs almost fully developed.
28:43Sixteen weeks, able to turn itself around.
28:55And then, finally, the most famous image of all.
29:00An eighteen-week-old fetus filmed inside its mother's womb.
29:06It was only five and a half inches long, and could not survive outside its mother's body.
29:16And yet its mouth and lips were fully formed.
29:21Its eyes were closed, and yet it could see.
29:26It moved constantly about in the amniotic fluid, which was filled with nutrients.
29:36This sequence was filmed at the request of an obstetrician,
29:40with the full consent of the mother.
29:44Neither the fetus nor the mother was in any way harmed.
29:49But hundreds of millions of viewers were able to watch in rapt fascination.
29:55There was the umbilical cord, the fetus's vital link to its mother.
30:09And its sex organs, already forming.
30:16And then there was that hypnotic sound,
30:20as the fetus took in amniotic fluid.
30:25Amniotic fluid through its mouth, and then breathed it out again.
30:37A sound we all made.
30:40A shape we all shared.
30:43Strangely unfamiliar, until Lennart Nielsen took us back.
30:55Even after the miracle of life became a worldwide phenomenon,
30:59Lennart Nielsen continued to refine his techniques.
31:05For years, many wondered how he achieved such perfect timing
31:11that he could film images like this egg cell at the precise moment of fertilization.
31:17The secret was to film under controlled conditions,
31:21in the lab, in a small container, under a microscope.
31:37In reality, the egg and surrounding fluid were colorless.
31:41But when light was refracted through a series of polarizing lenses in the microscope,
31:47the image was transformed.
31:53From this, to this.
31:59Nielsen's genius lay not only in capturing an image,
32:03but also in vesting it with a new technology.
32:07I remember the first time we placed an egg cell together with a sperm,
32:13and how the egg slowly began to move,
32:17and after a while, to turn counterclockwise.
32:23Time, space and time again.
32:27Slowly began to move, and after a while,
32:31to turn counterclockwise.
32:35Time stood still.
32:51But perhaps Nielsen's most effective technique is his charm.
32:57When he first asked opera star Birgit Nielsen
33:01if he could film her vocal chords, she declined,
33:05saying, I happen to know where your little camera has been.
33:16But in the end, the photographer got his way.
33:22Now all Birgit Nielsen has to do is sing
33:27with an endoscope in her mouth,
33:33after some good-natured complaining.
33:42And this is what a pair of world-famous vocal chords looks like in action.
33:57Nielsen's endoscope is seldom idle.
34:01Here, it's used to film a kiss.
34:05A kiss!
34:09A kiss!
34:11A kiss!
34:13A kiss!
34:15A kiss!
34:17A kiss!
34:19A kiss!
34:21A kiss!
34:23A kiss!
34:25A kiss!
34:27Kiss me once and kiss me twice.
34:41You should also do something with your hands,
34:45not just come straight at it.
34:47Harry, what do you think about Lisa doing something with her hands?
34:53From this angle, it's just another normal kiss
34:59with a mouth full of endoscope.
35:08But this is the Leonard Nielsen version.
35:12Time is money, they say.
35:16But that is never the way I think.
35:20The result is what counts.
35:24During the years I've been working with Life magazine,
35:30I've learned never to talk about how expensive it is
35:36or how hard it is.
35:40Just do the best you can.
35:44In 1992, Life magazine published
35:48Nielsen's forensic study of a royal death
35:52which occurred 350 years ago.
35:56Here we have the blood clots,
36:00and it came out, so here we have the cells,
36:04and this is an air bubble.
36:06The evidence included hair fibers, blood cells,
36:10pollen, and even trapped air bubbles from the 17th century.
36:14They all came from the coat of a Swedish king
36:18fallen in battle.
36:22This is the bullet hole.
36:28The king, Adolphus II, was killed by a German soldier
36:32in the Battle of Lützen in 1632.
36:40One very interesting piece is that one.
36:44This is this ravine.
36:46Nielsen had brought the 17th and 20th centuries together
36:50with a section of the king's genetic code
36:54superimposed on his portrait.
36:58Nielsen has been working
37:02with Life magazine editors for 50 years.
37:10This is a part of the king's hair.
37:18How were you able to determine the pollen?
37:22How did you determine which tree it was from?
37:26I have been working a lot with pollen earlier,
37:30so this is from a pine.
37:34I don't know what kind of pine, but it's pollen from a pine
37:38in Lützen, 1632.
37:42The 6th of November, so everything was packed in
37:46during the coagulation process.
37:50The hair fibers, the pollen, the air pollution,
37:54a few seconds, 2, 3, 4, 5 seconds, not longer,
37:58and pack it together.
38:02So we are very proud to do this,
38:06and call it a kind of investigation.
38:10What did they do with the actual air that was trapped in the blood clots?
38:14We haven't checked it yet, but some scientists,
38:18I have got some letters and telephone calls
38:22from the scientists, and there is at the University of London
38:26in the southern part of Sweden,
38:30there are some experts, and they want to
38:34we hope in the future try to see, to check
38:38the air bubbles.
38:42They were actually able to preserve the air.
38:46It's unbelievable.
38:50You've got to guide me, because I can pick out something that I think is quite beautiful
38:54and yes, I'll understand that it's the air bubbles
38:58or it's the strand of hair or whatever, but you've got to tell me if there's anything
39:02else here that you feel is very important scientifically
39:06that I wouldn't be aware of.
39:10You've got to make sure we see that.
39:14We should take it all and take it into the layout room and lay it all out.
39:18That's good. Thank you.
39:28Back in Stockholm, Nielsen began work on this series
39:32Odyssey of Life.
39:43Many of the series most extraordinary images were taken here
39:47in his laboratory at the Karolinska Institute.
39:51Sometimes it took weeks, even months
39:55to photograph a single sequence.
39:59Nielsen's ability to experiment endlessly
40:03with lighting, to wait patiently for the best moment to film
40:07developed over decades.
40:11I learned how light moves in water.
40:15Most light comes from above.
40:19I learned how to use small spotlights
40:23to create a light which has character and mood.
40:27Not just flat, unemotional light.
40:37There is literally nothing that Nielsen has not tried to improve upon.
40:45Nielsen spent an hour finding the right place for a specimen.
40:53And hours more adjusting his camera.
41:01This is what it took to get a close-up of a foot
41:05for a sequence about waterborne parasites.
41:15Now we're going to move our preparation a little bit.
41:21A little further, a little further. Stop for a moment, stop for a moment.
41:25Don't go, don't go down. Further forward.
41:29Stop there, stop there for a moment.
41:33Then I'll move the camera a little.
41:37Film shot in Africa
41:41with film shot in Stockholm.
41:45For Lennart Nielsen
41:49two locations are always better than one.
41:58Many of his favorite sequences
42:02were filmed in the Swedish countryside.
42:06Here he gets down to earth,
42:10literally,
42:14to film the snail and the giant.
42:28The secret behind many of his nature shots
42:32is the endoscope's ability to keep both the foreground and background
42:36equally sharp.
42:44Because the endoscope requires a great deal of light,
42:48tiny spotlights are also used, even on a sunny day.
42:52There we go.
43:00The actors are ready.
43:13No one can see how large this beetle really is.
43:17It might be as big as a dinosaur,
43:21thanks to the fact that everything is in focus,
43:25just as sharp as if I was using a macro lens.
43:29But I get the surroundings in focus as well.
43:33It's an exciting and new way in photography.
43:43There are many realities.
43:47The ant sees the world from its own point of view.
43:53Should you ask the ant how big the world is,
43:57it would probably say
44:01the world reaches all the way to the next anthill,
44:05but not any further.
44:09That's the reality of the world the ant lives in.
44:17For Nielsen to be satisfied,
44:21a shot must challenge the way we see life.
44:27This is a conventional close-up of a bee gathering nectar.
44:36And this is the Nielsen version.
44:47First, a tulip is turned into a stage.
44:55Next, a number of lenses are tried.
45:03Then the tulip is coated with honey and water
45:07to keep the bee occupied.
45:11So.
45:15Wonderful.
45:19The star is inside the matchbox,
45:23cooled with dry ice to slow him down.
45:35The rest of the cast waits for his cue.
45:41That's perfect, Tom.
45:45This is how it looks through the camera
45:49until the bee hears of a better part.
45:59But much of Nielsen's work has never been seen by the public.
46:03Oh!
46:07He takes countless pictures for medical research,
46:11like these images of blood vessels.
46:23He has even been asked to film the HIV virus
46:27for the Swedish Bacteriological Laboratory.
46:31All possible safety precautions are taken.
46:40This specimen was taken from a patient dying of AIDS.
46:49The syringe is emptied into the microscope's chamber.
47:01There we go.
47:11Photographs are being taken of the virus at regular intervals
47:15to create a time-lapse film.
47:19Then we take a picture per minute or so.
47:29These are lymphocytes, white blood cells
47:33that attack invaders in the body.
47:37But the lymphocytes themselves have been invaded by HIV.
47:42I think Lennart Nielsen
47:46has been an important messenger
47:50between the scientific world and the public.
47:54He's used his language of pictures
47:58to clarify and expose the most fascinating things
48:02of the human body,
48:06while at the same time finally awakening a curiosity
48:10in people, even the youth, to know more.
48:16He's pressed the envelope of photographic boundaries,
48:20always staying at the edge of the impossible,
48:24heightening the fantasy.
48:28Some have said that his pictures are too beautiful.
48:32I don't think that biology can be too beautiful.
48:40I think all life should have its chance.
48:44I also think it's important to realize
48:48that we humans shouldn't be so snobbish after all.
48:52We've all started in the same way.
48:56We need to have respect for animals,
49:00even the snake and the frog.
49:04Nielsen spends as much time as possible at his summer cottage
49:08with his wife, their children and grandchildren.
49:38He is always in motion.
49:54His work is his life,
49:58and he never stops working.
50:02There is always another opportunity
50:06to make the ordinary seem extraordinary.
50:22There is always another chance to learn.
50:32Today,
50:36the explorer of the inner cosmos
50:40is looking outward.
50:48I want to film how heavenly bodies move.
50:52I want to film how heavenly bodies move.
50:56I want to film how heavenly bodies move.
51:00I want to see their movement.
51:12The moon here
51:16is an egg cell slowly wandering,
51:20familiar shapes in new forms.
51:24The egg cell looks like a planet.
51:28I've always thought that.
51:32It's round shape, a planet floating in space.
51:42For Leonard Nielsen,
51:46everything is related,
51:50bound together by the odyssey of life.
51:58This video is possible with help from
52:02a support company
52:06www.support.nytel.com
52:10And through a grant from
52:14The Science Museum
52:22He seeks a vision
52:26of immortality in a journey that transcends us all.
52:51We see ourselves.
52:56We see the past.
53:02We see the future.
53:32Leonard Nielsen has dedicated his life to life itself.
54:02Take a closer look at the technology that's given us a closer look at ourselves.
54:12Zoom in to NOVA online at pbs.org.
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