My interest in hologaphy began while I was a post doc in Engineering at UCLA. The practice of holography is as much an art as a science, as understanding the physics behind holography doesn't insure that one can make a good hologram. From the 1970's through the 1990's I practiced both the art of holography and the use of holography as an artistic medium of expression. I am including below a few examples of my art holography during this period. All of these holograms were made on apparatuses of my design. For those interested in the more technical aspects of my work, please click here
The hologram above was intended to be reconstructed with an expanded laser beam approximating the reference beam used in making it. Viewing the hologram is akin to gazing in a mirror. The image appears actual size and has both vertical and horizontal parallax. Within the field of view of the hologram a viewer can move her head both left and right and up and down and experience different views of the image in three dimensions. The depth of this image is abouit two feet. This hologram questions what is and what isn't reality. Optically what you see is as if the actual still life were really there. In fact you could turn on the room lights, place the still life behind the hologram and have a person view the image through the hologram while verifying that there is really a still life behind it. Then if the room lights were turned off and the holographer stealthily removed the still life, the viewer would still see the still life as if nothing had changed.
The hologram was exhibited in 1988 in Images in Time and Space, an International holography exhibit at its Los Angeles, California venue.
This hologram was exhibited in 1988 and 1992 in Images in Time and Space, an International holography exhibit at its Los Angeles and Santa Monica California venues. To my knowledge "Night Sky" was the first mixed media work combining photography and holography to be shown in either a gallery or museum setting. In the piece the stars appear in depth behind the clouds in the photograph,- as they would in real life.