From her geometric studies to expressive landscapes and vibrant portraits, photographer Martine Franck uses black-and-white photography as "a release from the distraction of color."

Ms. Franck studied art history at the University of Madrid and at the École du Louvre in Paris. After graduating, she went traveling with a borrowed camera. That marked the beginning of a beautiful exploration of people and the world through the eye of a lens.

In 1958, the USSR constructed a remote Siberian town, Akademgorodok (Academic City), where scientists were placed to advance Soviet scientific research. Since its creation, top Soviet scientists worked there on theoretical genetics, the Soviet space program, and the development of nuclear weapons directed at the United States, until the crumbling of the USSR in 1991. Today, they devote their skills to the former enemy, capitalism, by providing technical support to Western firms.