Richard Muller / Scientific American

Physicist Richard Muller let us into his house on a hill in Berkeley and invites us to make ourselves at home. His place was filled with books, art, dinosaurs, photographs, macarame, everything a life can and should be filled with. I gravitated to a photograph on the wall, a younger version of Muller and his wife with two kids on their laps...taken in the room I'm standing in. The lighting, the style, the print quality of milky blacks and reflected highlights looks familiar...it looked like Norman Seeff. He turns it over and there is a note "Photo by Norman Seeff, for GEO". It hangs in his house in two different places. He explains:

I knew he was creating a picture for the ages as soon as I saw it: the un conventional pose, separating the couple, the kids, our home. I knew Norman had something in mind that day and I was thankful to be able to be a part of it.

Muller takes me over to another giant photograph: a close up of a dandelion, so close and so big and so epic, it looked like you were staring into the universe.

Do you know the photographer of this photograph? 

I tell him I'm pretty sure I do, I think the photographer is Richard Muller. I am correct!

We get back to work and set up our gear. Once again, like many photographers before us, we begin to photograph Muller, at his desk, in his house, surrounded by his life.