Will have fun

These are all of the old posts from the first two years of the forum. They are locked.
Updated: 2005-03-28 by HoloM (the god)
Bruce

Will have fun

Post by Bruce »

An excellent "dose" of reality, Dinesh! Too bad your comments are buried in this thread. Perhaps we should should include your comments in a permanent header to this forum!
Having been involved in this sport since the mid-eighties, I have seen some of the history or progression of holography and it is littered with the bleached bones of well-meaning holographers attempting to promote their medium. As artists, we holographers are marginalized due to the rarity of images of value and as science hobbyists we are very limited due to the cost of equipment.
As for myself.... one day I sat down and analyzed why I do holography in a soul-searching way, and decided to just enjoy that aspect of it.


Bruce
DJ Mathson

Will have fun

Post by DJ Mathson »

Sure Dinesh, I understood you were joking.

To be honest, I do not think holography and holograms will be interesting for more than a few. Not until we have a snapshot holocamera producing holograms you can see in any light coming from any direction. The lighting is a hologram's biggest problem. Photos and printed pictures are so easy to handle. You can have them anywhere and see them in any lighting. That is why we see them everywhere. Really everywhere. Holograms is so limited in that way compared to pictures. Also, I think photography in a way is abstract. It does not show the world as it is, though many people think so. And you can display anything; the blur of a racing car, the sunset, your friends birthday party or the petals of a flower. Holograms are more limited in the way that they actually show the world as it is, more or less. That´s a limitation. Sure, you can have light beams swirling in the air and things cross breeding in space, but that will only fascinate a few.

My main interest in holography is that I would like to make art that is not possible in any other way. I like to see holograms that makes me feel I am looking into another dimension. But many people do not care about those things, and you can probably say that about any hobby or art. Why aren´t there oil paintings in every store and in every home?

We could compare holography with making bronze sculptures. I bet there are sculptors wondering why there aren´t bronze sculptures standing in every home, since the sculptor knows how fascinating it is with bronze scultures, how beautiful they are and what a craft it takes to make them.

The only future I see in display holography is in making exclusive art (and then I do not mean chess pieces). But unfortunately it has still not get recognized as that yet. Probably because people still see holograms as a gimmic and mainly wonder how they are made.

I feel very pessimistic today so I hope you prove me wrong, though for me it really does not matter how popular holography is as long as I will be able to see and make holograms for myself. But I really enjoy seeing all of you enthusiast out there, and I am happy to have found this forum.

Dinesh

Will have fun

Post by Dinesh »

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to depress anyone!
I agree that lighting is a major problem, but I don't think it's as important as all that. There are many products in the market that built with a light. There are, for instance, those pictures of falling waterfalls which work by a revolving light behind the picture. The fiber optic lamps, lava lamps etc. It's always possible to include lighting in the holographic system. Whether the price can be kept down is a commercial decision, but giving it to friends, it's always possible to mae it visible.
I also like you comparison of hologram to bronze statues. You can appreciate the beauty of the statue and, if you make one, you can take pleasure in making it. However, one problem I've always found with holography (or holographers!) is that thay think they're saving the world! Some holographers are always talking of : "A perfect blend of Art and Science!", "The best and most unique way of seeing since the 17th century!", "A visual method that captures the complete information!" and similar over-hyped statements. Practitioners of holography also seem to wallow in the ability to craft common items into holographic equipment to such an extent that the process of creating a shutter, finding ways to heat the developing trays, determining the density of the developing plate etc seem to be more important than the image itself. Usually the image is lifeless and sterile, but you get glowing reports of how the holography was so ingenious in shooting this chess piece.
If you enjoy expressing yourself artistically and creatively in the kind of unique imagery that holography is capable of, I think it's a wonderful thing to be able to learn and make these kinds of images. You can enjoy the imagery and get a sense of aesthetic pleasure from them, just as a bronze sculpture. But it's not going to save the world, it has no undelivered "promise", It's technically and aesthetically no more challenging than making a clay pot or a bronze statue. I think that holography should be enjoyed for what it is, without pretension. If you enjoy making a hologram and i you like the hologram, so much the better!
DJ

Will have fun

Post by DJ »


No harm done. You do not depress me. I like reading your posts. Just a mood swing.

I think you are right in that it is a good way in making it easy for the 'consumer' and include lighting with the hologram. One example is Rudie Berkhout's WLT display.
http://rudieberkhout.home.mindspring.co ... isplay.htm

I do not see a problem in people getting more into the process of making equipment and finding techniques than producing actual images. People do things for different reasons. The process can be much more important than the result.

I have said some of those things myself, like 'It is a nice blend of art and science'. And in a way it is. But as you say, so are many things. To me holography is more of a craft than science but with some knowledge about physics, chemistry and technology you can surely improve in making holograms. But still it is a craft. Making glassworks is as much a blend of science and art as holography. The thing that I think makes holography different is that it points out physical properties that people may not be aware of. They may start thinking about what light is and how it behaves. If we compare with glassworks, I do not think so many people start thinking Wow, they use melted sand, or wow how do they do that? Instead they see a beautiful object. But this is probably only dependent on how often we see something. I am not interested in holography to understand physics. Then I would rather study optical physics, which however is very interesting. I just want to learn how to make strange beautiful artefacts. As a bonus I learn about physics and technology.

Holography will not save the world, but it may make the world more beautiful and interesting.


danny bruza

Will have fun

Post by danny bruza »

(holographers ourselves simply show our skulls and chess pieces to other holographers)
Martin

Will have fun

Post by Martin »

"Practitioners of holography also seem to wallow in the ability to craft common items into holographic equipment to such an extent that the process of creating a shutter, finding ways to heat the developing trays, determining the density of the developing plate etc seem to be more important than the image itself."

That has indeed been the case. One might speculate that tinkering the equipment, improving the processing has taken away all (most) creativity.
Economic reasons may play a fairly important role. Making tables, lens/mirror holders etc. yourself costs less than buying them from Newport. The same may apply to (some degree) to lasers and recording materials.
D A Battin

Will have fun

Post by D A Battin »

while my age is just skirting the hippy era ,i had older bros and sisters that were total hippys! Your wife is correct about them all fitting together! LOL




this transmission hologram is a copy master (able to make two at a time)
Colin Kaminski

Will have fun

Post by Colin Kaminski »

"Practitioners of holography also seem to wallow in the ability to craft common items into holographic equipment to such an extent that the process of creating a shutter, finding ways to heat the developing trays, determining the density of the developing plate etc seem to be more important than the image itself."

Speaking for myself, I dream of the day when I no longer think of the hardware I am using and can just imagine an image and have the image be my focus for the entire process. Right now I have to wallow in the equipment because of my experience level. Someday I hope to just get into the lab and shoot.
Greg G

Will have fun

Post by Greg G »

Holography has been part of my career and a sporadic hobby for almost 30 years. It's been a little depressing to drop in here over the years and see that most holographers are still doing pretty much the same sorts of things that holographers were doing in the 70s. Yet, due to advances in various technologies and enthusiastic educators, holography is incredibly accessible now. School kids make holograms now in 2nd grade. Scanning back through the forum, most of us have equipment that holographers would have sold their children for even 15 years ago. My first 3 mW HeNe cost me 3 months salary as an engineer at GE. My 100mW 315M cost a small fraction of that. I have an achromat DCG of a monkey skull here in my office It took about 250K$ worth of equipment in a specialized industrial lab and many days of pondering with some very bright friends and coworkers to make 25 years ago. Now it's a fun thing to do in the basement on the weekend. But oddly, given this vast and incredible wealth of technology, we're all still sitting at our benches making holos of skulls, sea shells and other 3D test patterns while preaching to other members of the same choir about how holography is such a wonderful medium unappreciated by the public. ( Why doesn't everyone find a slightly fuzzy, somewhat astigmatic, sort of monochrome 3D image of a household object fascinating? )

This forum represents many hundreds of thousands of hours of work by bright and somewhat obsessed folks exploring a set of related topics in their own unique and special ways. Sifting the archives, we generally swap arcane recipes, discuss the minute details of esoteric phenomena, spend hundreds of hours on the home manufacture of cheap, commercially available equipment and even more hours discovering/circumventing the shortcomings of those creations. The postings about actually creating images using holography ( other than test patterns ) are pretty scarce. I've learned quite a lot in here over the years and enjoyed many interesting discussions. But from looking through this forum, we seem to be endlessly sharpening our pencils in preparation to work. Sure, the technologies are interesting to explore and as challenging as we want them to be. But some of the most breath taking holographic art I've seen being sold in a gallery was done with a 5mW HeNe in a sandbox by an artist who could just handle the technique of developing the plates in D-19. Like photographic images, people bought them for what they revealed/portrayed, not how they were made. Perhaps as a complement to this technical arena, there should be a forum that discusses and supports the artistic uses of holography.
Sergio

Will have fun

Post by Sergio »

I agree with you and Greg, we are playing with saturated film processes that we know that are limited with our low cost equipment, although incredible hardware progress where made these years.

I believe that Denisyuk setup would be the key for solving many problems, simplicity and low cost.. but we know how hard is obtain a clear luminous single beam hologram. A possible breakthrough would be made with a "simple" polymer film that, possibly with a simple development achieve a hiper modulatated reflection hologram, ie, a nonlinear holographic reply with good quality image, other possible setup could provide filtes for wide angle light reply illumination, etc.
Locked