I always look forward to receiving my copy of the the Journal of Ophthalmic Photography in the mail. Even after reading digital proofs as an editor or contributing author it’s great to see the final product in print. There’s just something tangible and authentic about turning the pages of a high quality publication printed on good stock.

I was especially looking forward to the Spring 2016 issue of the JOP. It contains an article I contributed on The Confocal Tonal Shift. What’s unique about this article is that evolved from a blog post here on eye-pix into a scholarly article (of sorts).

The blog was based on an observational series of photographs that documents the tonal changes that occur when focusing the Heidelberg Spectralis, a confocal scanning laser ophthalmoscope (cSLO). I put the blog together to further my own understanding of just what I was seeing with the cSLO, and share my observations with fellow imagers. When asked to convert the blog into a piece for the JOP, I initially felt it was too informal, opinionated, and lacking strong references to be included in the professional literature.

But the kernel of a good idea was definitely there. So I worked backwards and did a literature search after the fact. Then I reworked the article and was able to place my observations into the context of other clinical findings described in the ophthalmic literature. Probably not the ideal way to develop an idea into an article, but in this case it worked.

A mentor of mine has always encouraged me to get as much mileage as possible out of a project. The Confocal Tonal Shift is a good example of that. It’s gone from a blog post to a formal article in a well-respected professional journal. I’ve also adapted it into an expanded lecture topic (The Quirks of Confocal Imaging) that  I presented at a recent educational program. It received good feedback and will work it’s way into my lecture rotation this year.

The full journal article can be viewed here.

Bennett TJ. The confocal tonal shift.
Journal of Ophthalmic Photography, 38(1):17-22, Spring, 2016