LASER REFLECTIONS: WORK IN PROGRESS

Our studio operates in a fashion very similar to that of a portrait photography studio circa 1950 – we offer what famed photographer Edward Weston referred to as “un-retouched portraits”: We do not employ airbrushing or digital editing to doctor our images and in an era when the authenticity of photographic images is constantly being called into question, we are seeing a large degree of acceptance for our work - primarily (ironically?) in the area of holographic portraiture. I argue that our studio is one of the only places in the world where you can be assured of getting an honest to goodness likenesses of yourself or your sweetheart – an attribute that brings us many subjects who are either :a) physically very attractive and/or b) supremely confident in their position in life. Our appeal is anything but universal and we accept the fact that at $5,000 we are not really an option for the majority of would-be portrait customers. Those individuals can take solace in the knowledge that within the U.S. there some 10,000 airbrushing/digital morphing portrait photographers who, for a few hundred dollars, will indulge their personal appearance fantasies unfettered by reality.

Much of what we are doing at Laser Reflections deals with the uses of holographic portraiture beyond simply chronicling memories for moms, dads and narcissists. Our images make traffic-building retail displays – what we are labeling HDH (High-Definition Holography) acts like an optical magnet in drawing passers by to stop and see what’s going on. At a time when our visual senses are being assaulted on a grand scale by gigantic billboards and megavision screens – there is something both charming and ingratiating about an image that must be approached to be appreciated. The interactive nature of holography – the fact that it changes as a function of viewer perspective – is no doubt part of its allure and we boast an almost 2 to 1 advantage over any other visual display technique in the critical factor of retention. The fact that our images stay with people longer than other graphic techniques has considerable benefits in advertising and product branding – an advantage we are attempting to exploit in creating next-generation signage to compete against neon and lightboxes particularly within the hospitality industry.

New Display Techniques

One of the first things I realized when I began this my second career as a display holographer was that lighting holography had been somewhat neglected. We were fortunate to have worked with Bob Hess at Point Source Productions. Bob remains someone who places a premium on proper lighting and he started us off on what has become something of a personal campaign to improve light fixturing.
The most basic lighting source we use at Laser Reflections is our Framelight designed as a snap-on connection to a standard metal frame. While incorporating absolutely no new technology I felt it nonetheless worth mentioning because of the large number of holographic displays I still see today that suffer from poor lighting and for the many more would-be installations that perhaps never make it because of fears regarding lighting. The Framelight has a user adjustable height control which allows fine-tuning of the image color. The fixture can be specified for MR11 or MR16 bulbs but with rare exceptions, we use 35W MR11 bulbs for everything we do in display.