public viewpoint of embossens hurt the display Holography?

[dannybee]

Its seem that most of the public see rainbow embossed holograms as holography and the price for the embossed holograms are penny's on the dollar. But the public dosn't know what really went into making the final product and the cost involved. does this hurt the holographers that make a living at display holography? also many times people get lenticulars image and call them holograms dosn't this also hurt the display holographer?

[Johnfp]

I say dont overthink it. Each and every facet of "holography" has its benifits and a place.

Does the buyer want "WOW", Cheap, Functional, Art???

Find you Niche and go with it.

[Tom B.]

Most people have never seen a real, full-perspective hologram, and when they do see one, they are at least a little amazed. This is an opportunity. The problem I think you are referring to is that the price they are willing to pay is based on the going rate for cheap cheesy kitsch 3D images. A higher fidelity version of that is still cheap and cheesy. Sort of like Blu-Ray vs. DVD versions of "Porky's". So the trick is to come up with a popular art that makes good use of holography and somehow also makes money.

Maybe accomplished technical holographers need to acknowledge their limits and seek collaborations with good artists on content? Many pitfalls here, but it's something to try...

[Dinesh]

Most people have never seen a real, full-perspective hologram

Most people actually have seen a full perspective hologram, or, at least, they think they have. These Musion screens ( http://www.musion.co.uk/ ) and other full view stage 3D presentations are being called "holograms" and are being referred to as "holograms". The public completely believes these are holograms. If now the public is presented with a cheesy, ragged 4x5 rectangular piece of glass with a "3D" image of a single - or perhaps two - images of computer keyboards, keychains, various animals etc which they have to strain to see unless "the light" is "properly" oriented, they naturally compare this with Musion and the comparison falls short, very short!

The problem is not to do with a good hologram - in the sense of interference fringes recorded on a medium and reconstructed with a light source - against a bad hologram. The problem lies in what is and is not a hologram. This is as opposed determining simply the value of a hologram judged against other 3D methodologies (unless, of course all 3D methodologies are "holograms", a trend I'm beginning to notice!). I'm afraid I tend to lose patience with those who rank and rail, very loudly sometimes, that lenticulars and musion screen "are not holograms". This conversation has been played out both here and on LinkedIn and other areas and has reached cacophonous levels! As I've frequently said, volume does not create or imply accuracy or right; your argument does not have validity simply because you can deliver it at a higher volume. I think holographers have to recognise that the context of the word has changed, just as the concept of telephone has changed from a large black object with a large dial to today's cell phones. If traditional holographers in the Gabor sense do not recognise this, traditional holographers will soon see their concept of holography as a quaint and amusing hangover from the past. Holography, and the context of holography, needs to evolve like everything else. Trying to get the public to buy, appreciate or acknowledge a traditional hologram is rapidly becoming akin to trying to do the same for a Daguerreotype - a curiosity to be valued for it's historical antecedents to today's digital photography, but nothing more.

So the trick is to come up with a popular art that makes good use of holography and somehow also makes money.

Well,it's been tried (http://www.donnarogersfineart.com/muththrumnails.php for example), but I doubt that any holographer has made a great deal of money. I think the dichotomy lies in the difference between "popular" art and what I'd like to call "high" art. The kind of art that sells for millions is not popular because the average Joe and Jane don't understand it and does not have the money to spend on it and wouldn't spend it if they did have it. After all, how many of you would spend 8,000,000 dollars (even if you had it to spend) on a shark immersed in formaldehyde ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Physic ... one_Living ). However, holography, in the Gabor sense, has never been able to command these kind of prices or appeal to this audience because holography is not seen as "art" to the cognoscenti, it's seen as quaint or kitsch or a craft or a high tech razzle-dazzle kind of a thing (like flashing LEDS on clothing).

Maybe accomplished technical holographers need to acknowledge their limits and seek collaborations with good artists on content? Many pitfalls here, but it's something to try...

Again, we've tried. We've even been approached by some artists. I don't know about other "technical holographers", but I've always been game to try something new. I've always believed that holography will not progress but will gradually fade away as an interesting technique/technology of a bygone day when lasers were large and the medium was small (look, 8x10!!) unless holography confronts the public with something they both understand and will open their wallets for. They won't do this for green/orange/blue keyboards, animals and cinematic doll themes. This is great as a hobby, but it is similar to photography with a box camera or basket weaving and egg colouring. A lot of hobbyists holographers seem to wallow in the mehodology of their hobby than the final product; they're more interested in finding out how to stabilise their optics and plate holders or how to get green/blue etc, than in producing striking imges with what they got and a little imagination. Artists don't approach holographers because they don't try to find them - they don't see the relevance to their "art" - and holographers don't approach artists because a lot of them think they are artists. So, the best you have is a showing in a small town hall or a local library. I've often asked "What is art" and have never had a satisfactory reply. Most of the time I've never had a reply at all, simply a sneer or a raised eyebrow or two. But, if a shark immersed in a tank of formaldehyde is considered an eight million dollar piece of art, I'd gladly make a hologram of a shark immersed in formaldehyde for 1/10th of that!

My opinion, for what it's worth, is that we must produce images that captivate, move or immerse us in something unexpected. In fact that's why we're Triple Take - we were hoping that people seeing holograms would not only do a double take, they'd do a triple take. But, far more important in my view, is that the images must adhere to the zeitgeist.

Forget the theory! Forget the wires, struts and springs for stable plateholder! Get out there and paint magic with light!

[Johnfp]

WTF was second to that last sentence?

[Dinesh]

WTF was second to that last sentence?

You mean this one:

But, far more important in my view, is that the images must adhere to the zeitgeist.

Sorry. The zeitgeist is, literally, "the ghost of the times". It refers to a sort of vague idea about the way the world is now; the way people think, the cultural norms, pop culture, fashion, the media, all of that. In my youth, the sixties in England, everything (the zeitgeist) was flowery, flowing, multicoloured with sharp saturated colours. The culture was full of references to hallucinogenic and psychadelic substances. Basically, everything, including art, was, well, the sixties.

Today, the art is far more abstract. There seem to be a lot of geometric shapes, squares, triangles etc, and the colours are far more saturated. Here in San Diego, there is a fair every July 4th and there's a large hall where the public can submit photographic art which is put up on the walls. I was going to submit something holographic. But, being a little old-fashioned, I was going to make something representative, that is, some object or objects that you could recognise. I talked about this to an artist friend of mine and he said that representative art was simply not in today's "art culture" - the zeitgeist. Today's art was apparently a lot of abstract geometrical shapes next to each other in bright colours. Well, just to confirm this to myself, I went to several art galleries. Sure enough, there was a lot of abstract geometrical shapes in bright colours!

So, the reason I said that the images must adhere to the zeitgeist is that if you make images that have no "meaning" or "context", the images will simply be passed over and ignored. People evaluate imagery and images in the context of the times. A case in point was an image of a razor blade made on a 8x10, I believe, and sticking edge on quite a long ways from the plate. It was a double image so as you walked past it, one side of the razor blade was the US flag and the other side was the USSR flag. Clearly a political statement adhering to the zeitgeist of the fifties and sixties. I suspect that today's youth would probably not see that image as we saw it.