Click on the picture to see a larger version
of my
current "business" card.
To read a related article on my early activities
in high
speed
photography
Click here!
Once upon a time I graduated from the Boston Latin School and followed
that up with an undergraduate AAS program in Photographic Science where
I lasted about 3 years and then went to Professional Photographic
Illustration program where I finished a BFA degree and then followed
this up with a MFA in Graphic Design, all at the Rochester Institute
of Technology. I became a Photographic Technician in the Distillation
Research Lab of Dr. Kenneth CD Hickman for a few years. Followed that
up
with a stint as an administrator of Arts and Graphic Arts in the
College of Continuing Education at RIT and eventually was hired by Dr.
Russell Kraus as a faculty member in the School of Photographic Arts
and Sciences where I was from about 1978 until 2012 trying to teach
concepts related to technical photography such as high speed, aerial,
density visualization, multispectral, panoramic, photo-finish,
peripheral, photogrammetry, etc. But those days are over as you will
see reading below.
After 45 years of dedicating myself to teaching, promoting and
spreading the good word about RIT, "stuff" happened behind my back and
I now try to concentrate more on myself than the organization I served
all that time. I miss the students. A lot.
Anyway, you can get an idea of the kinds of things
I
used to
do on a daily basis by taking a look at some of my past annual reports
such as the one 2011
or the one from 2010
or 2008
or 2005
or 2004
or 2003
or 2002
or 2001
or 2000
or 1999
or the one from 1998. I prepared many more over the years
but those were typed with a typewriter or computer and printed with a
dot matrix printer and delivered on paper. However, I did find one and it is available as a .doc file from 1984. But to get a bit more of a
glimpse into what makes me tick you may be interested in one I
call my
ill-fated 1975 report which was to be my last one in my
previous life in a now-closed college at RIT.
Or, you might want to take a look at a "historical
document"
that I really have not taken the trouble to update properly since about
the early 1990s and that is what might be called my "resume"
and here is a general, narrative-type biography concentrating
mostly on
education, play and work. By the way, if you want to read up on what my
academic "career" entailed in the '60s here is a link to my unofficial
undergraduate and graduate transcripts.
To see a sample of what I tried to teach choose HS/TL
for an article describing in detail my High
Speed/Time Lapse course or select course outlines for detailed descriptions
of this and most of my other courses.
A fun project was
the making of photographs during the January 2000 total lunar eclipse.
To read about this and see a couple of the resulting photographs just
choose eclipse!
One of my principal areas of professional activity
over
the
years has been the "field" of photoinstrumentation. Under this umbrella
title are included such topics as high speed photography, schlieren
and shadowgraph photography, ballistic photography and
stroboscopy, and many other applications of photography where one needs
to not only operate under hazardous conditions but is often required to
produce photographs from which quantitative information will be
extracted. In August of 2000 several of these photographs appeared in a
book titled Out
of Sight
and an extensive article appeared in the Italian science magazine Newton. In
January 2001, American
Photo OnCampus carried a little spread as
well. In May 2001 a couple of my stroboscopic photos appeared in Veja
magazine in Brazil and in March/April 2002 my photograph appeared on
the cover of Fotomundo
in Argentina and an article on digital stroboscopy inside. Then, in
2004, a selection of my photographs appeared in Popular
Mechanics in Spanish and finally, in October 2005 my work with
improvised stroboscopic photography appeared in Popular
Photography magazine. Then again in June 2006 but this time
the theme was Polarization
photography
A recent "sideline" activity involved the
organization
of an
exhibition of photographs whose original purpose was scientific in
nature but which would be exhibited in our school as images with a
compelling visual and aesthetic content as well. Here is the link to
the Images
from Science exhibition.
On
the left is an
image of a supersonic bullet in free flight sporting its "shock wave"
and visualized in a schlieren system. Select the thumbnail image to see
a larger version or click on bullet
animation to see this action in motion as recorded with a
Beckman and Whitley Dynafax camera at 10,000 pictures per second. On
the right is a 1/10 millisecond photograph of the impact of a drop on a
pool of water. Choose splash
animation to see it in motion!
My long term interest has been the field of
scanning or
strip
photography. This started in the mid-60's and extends to this day.
Applications include panoramic, peripheral, photofinish, and other
derivatives of an "ingenious" approach to image-making. In the early
'90s I made an uninterrupted photograph of a 1.5 mile
stretch of a
local historic avenue. The photo below is not of that avenue but was
made as a test for making of the one of the avenue! In the late 90's I
made the second photo below with an improvised digital "strip" camera.
Select improvised
digital camera or choose infrared imaging with digital cameras to
see a couple
of examples of what I am working on at the moment.
From time to time I get requests for my
photographs for
reproduction in books, magazines, webpages, etc. Sometimes I am offered
a fee but most often not. I started to keep a record of these requests
and this link takes you to Photo Requests
Choose Free
Traveling Exhibitionto learn about a small
collection of peripheral portraits I have on worldwide tour. This
low-cost, low-tech (high novelty!) exhibition has now been shown in
places like Little Angels Gallery in California, the ITSON school and
the University of Mexico at Obregon in Mexico, at Clemson University,
in Sao Paulo, Panama, Chicago, etc. Here it is at the Wallace Memorial
Library
at RIT in February, 2004. The latest
exhibition of these photographs was at the NIP 23 Conference of the
Society for Imaging Science and Technology held in Anchorage, Alaska in
early Sept. 2007 and lately at the University of the Pacific in Lima,
Peru from Nov. 27-Dec. 15, 2007.
While the little faces collection continues to be
available I
also have another "traveling" set of peripheral portraits available to
anyone interested in displaying them. These are framed, behind
plexiglass and 8x14 and 16x20 inches in size. You can see them at: just
Portraits and at: Framed
Little Faces. Additionally I've framed a set of
early or vintage linear
strip and panoramic photographs from the 1970's and these are
also available for exhibition.
Now, in addition, I have compiled a small
collection of
my
high-speed and "technical" photographs and they are available for
exhibition (free to schools, museums and galleries). Contact me for
details and see the images in this TechWebGallery.
In September 2005 I decided to have some of my
peripheral
photographs printed as postcards. I then realized that I'd have a lot
left over so decided to give them away for the asking to anyone
interested in them. Find out how HERE.
During the last few of years I have devoted much
effort
and
many hours to setting up and overseeing the smooth running of a
photo/imaging mail list known as the PhotoForum,
whose membership numbers about 650 addresses worldwide. I am also the
listowner of a Spanish language photography mail list called Fotored, the
listowner of the Photohist-L
photographic history mail list and the
coordinator of SPIE's High Speed Photography forum. I also help
out The Photographic
Historical Society in Rochester as board member and Internet
"liaison"!.
I am very fortunate to have been associated, both
as a
student
and a colleague, with some of the best photography instructors around.
They are true "giants"
and
you will find some of their names listed as authors of important books
connected with photography and photographic education. On June 30, 2000
I went to the monthly lunch meeting of the "locals" and made some cool snapshots.
In the early 1980s Dr. Les Stroebel made some faculty portraits and at
the time I was interested in 3D photography.
In July 2007 I was given a document written by
William
Soule
Shoemaker about the history of the school from 1931 until 1981, the
occasion of the 50th anniversary of its establishment. It also
contained a brief biography of C.B. Neblette and William Brehm, as well
as a listing of past faculty members at the school. I am making it
available for your information here. Read SPAS
history here!. Also, sometime in 2004 I decided to visit
classes taught by several of my current colleagues and make an informal
visual record of them in "action".
I have a few small Exhibits
of Photographs available. Here you will find
examples of high speed, panoramic, peripheral and schlieren photography
and other specialized techniques. The Phoenix Process is highlighted in
a couple of exhibits. You can read more about this novel process and
many other unusual applications (such as high speed flash photography
and "conical peripheral photography" as shown in the small images at
the top of this page) by checking the Articles file
that also includes writings by friends and several present and past
teaching colleagues.
A few years ago I had an exhibition of my
Peripheral
Portraits, some modified with the Phoenix Process, on exhibit at the Club
Fotografico de Mexico, located in Mexico City. While
the real exhibit has closed, choosing Exhibit will
allow you to see some of the work that was on display. More recently I
was invited to show past and current strip photography work at the Rose
Lehrman Gallery of Harrisburg Area Community College in early 2004.
This was the announcement
and this was the exhibition. More recently, in 2008, I was
invited to
exhibit these and additional stroboscopic photographs at the
PhotoCenter in Schenectady. This is the announcement
and this is a view of the photographs on the walls!.
I'm looking for
venues to exhibit. Contact me if interested.
On the "techy" side I put a small exhibit of my
high
speed and
schlieren photographs together as a result of being invited to show
them at the Discovery Center located in Bethlehem, PA.
For an abbreviated, online, version of the exhibit click here!
and to read a story about the exhibit that appeared in a local
newspaper choose article.
In 2005 the collection was exhibited at the 50th Annual Conference of
the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) in San Diego,
CA. It looked like
this. Then the collection was put on display from September
through end of December 2005 at the Danville
Science Center in Virginia. For 6 months during 2006 the
collection was on display at the Miami
Museum of Science. Following this exhibit I decided to make a
catalogue of the collection and this resulted in a small book that
includes more than just the images in the collection. It is available
through a print-on-demand outfit. Learn more about this and other
booklets available from an "on-demand" printer HERE!
More recently a dozen of these "technical and
scientific"
visualization photographs have been on exhibit as part of the Hickory
Museum of Art (located in North Carolina) exhibition entitled Harold
Edgerton's Work and those he inspired (from April through
August 2008) and another dozen were on exhibit from April 22 - May 10,
2008 in a hallway display at the School
of Photographic Arts and Sciences. The collection, along with
some examples of peripheral portraits was exhibited at the May
Gallery of Webster University in St. Louis from Sept.
11 through October 2, 2009. The announcement looked like
this and part of the exhibition like
this. There was also the article in the university newspaper.
If you are
interested in hosting a similar exhibition (no charge) please contact
me.
A couple of publishing opportunities came about in
2003
and
you can see examples of my contributions to a STRETCH
by Nick Meers, a panoramic photography book and to Adventures
with Pinhole and Home-made cameras by John
Evans, a book true to its title!. Then, in late 2003 a book on Images in
Science edited by Lennert Mueller and published in Sweden
included a large number of my high speed and schlieren photographs
along with explanatory text.
And, if you've read this far and want to know a
bit more
about
me, you may be interested in reading an interview with an online
magazine called Cyberholic
and now that I think of it there was also an earlier one at: Pomegranate
On a really lazy day in 1994 I founded the PPIC, a worldwide
net of expert investigators whose
specialty is the debunking of claims of psychic events, paranormal
activities, ghosts, force fields, unexplainable phenomena or imminent
invasion by extraterrestrials based on photographic evidence. On the
other hand, I have also dealt with more serious forensic photo
authentication matters in cases such as the President
Kennedy assassination and the OJ Simpson case as seen here.
For a bit of background maybe
you want to check out my life history and see my
resume, such as it sort of is (I stopped revising it in the mid
1990s). For a "pictorial review" you can see me in about 1943, or
1946, or with my mother and brother in
1948, or by myself in
1949, or on my horse, Blanquito, in
1952, in
1954 or by myself in
1956 or in Necochea with my
buddies or on the beach with my parents in
1957. Believe it or not, smoking in
1962! Alone in
1963 and
1975. Or, see me in
3-D! (parallel view) in 1994, and to bring you up to date these are
from
1996 and from
1998 and
2002. Finally, see me with "Doc" Edgerton, a
favorite teacher (although I never had him for a class) or, to
catch a glimpse of one of my favorite cities, check out a panoramic photograph I made in Buenos
Aires around 1978!. Make sure to scroll it to the right since it is
rather long.
You may be interested in a short story of my trip
to
Argentina during August in 1996. Or, a report about a July 1998 2
week visit to Tanzania's
Serengeti and Ngorongoro National Parks.
On the right is (to the best of
our information at this time) the
Davidhazy "clan" crest. In case you are wondering, their origins are
Hungarian. Selecting the thumbnail will take you to a small website
where you can find those members of this group who are most closely
related to me. Here is a photograph of my father, Capt. Andras Davidhazy and my mother,
Gabriella (Petracsek) and my
brother John and sister Minka on her wedding. And this is a
painting by the Komaromi Kacz of my mother on her
wedding in about 1939. And this is an award-wining(!) photo of my
sister
Minka and poodle taken in 1960.
And on another personal note, here's a picture of
two of
my
"kids". These asterisks (* and *)
are pictures of my older son from a few years ago and this is a link to
Andrew's website.
Jennifer married Memet in 1999. Here is the
happy couple and here is
Jennifer with Andy. While at Jennifer's wedding, my sister and
brother and I and our spouses got to spend some time
together. Oh, and this was the arrival of the
first of 20 grandchildren and this
the second. After this one I lost count! (However, here is
Peri in 2003).
Here's
Sue with one of her favorite horses (and this is
her website). Sometimes I get to
round up the herd! This was Sue on the Oak Orchard with our son
Cameron when he was 3 and here he is
at 17 .
While in Argentina my father owned a shipyard and
made a
small
fleet of 13 foot Quequen-class
sailboats he designed and I helped build. Here is a drawing of the little
sloop. Later, in Seattle, he designed (and seen here with him at
the helm) what I think is a classic, the 20 foot Heritage.
A few dozen of these were made. Here is my sister Minka with our father
in Budapest on his 90th birthday in photo
one and
photo two. This is the text of an
article about him that appeared in a Hungarian magazine. "Capt.
Andy" passed away in Budapest in 2003 and this is a brief obituary
prepared by my brother John.
After arriving to the US in the mid-50's from
Argentina
I went
to school at Boston Latin School and just before coming to RIT in 1961
I was a counselor at Job's
Pond Camp in Vermont. At RIT I enrolled in the School of
Photographic Arts and Sciences and for a while was a studious
Photographic Science student and from Dr. Zakia learned all about DlogE
Curves
and Tone
Reproduction. Here I am with a few of my instructor colleagues in
the
late 1980's.
Again, remembering earlier times when our family
was all
together and living in Seattle, here are photos from the early 1980's
of my mother Gabriella, close-up
and
full-length, and one of my
little sis and father. I also have a photograph of one of my
grandfathers
Petracsek Josef and here a grouping treasured by my mom showing her
with her
mother and an insert of her father and these are my father's
parents
Ilona and
Janos both painted by my great uncle, Komaromi Kacz. Here are
photographs of
Davidhazy Janos and Kacz Ilona on or about their wedding day on May
11, 1895.
In the mid-1970's 3 friends of mine and I got
together
and
made fiberglass versions of the Quequen
class sloops. To this date I put mine
on a trailer (in 2004 Sue and I
replaced the deck) and go
sailing on Ontario. Sue often comes along, here
on Conesus lake and here on
Lake Ontario in 2002. She actually likes
fishing more and catching the really
BIG ones! And here is Sue and me
in Dec. 2000 and at home
at breakfast, followed by an
indoor panorama and here is a winter 2001
view out the back and the
front of our home in Honeoye Falls.
Finally, here is my list of
Web sites for Photo/Imaging Technologists with many thanks to all
who contributed to it.
To send me mail select my
Express Mail Delivery service!.
The first version of this page was installed in
1992
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