The Holographer | Holography » Steve Benton

Editor’s note – Andy Pepper

Kaveh — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 09:53:02 +0000

Stephen Benton was one of those unusual individuals who could influence and encourage people, both within his field of expertise and beyond.

A year after his untimely death, this digital memorial is launched to offer an online venue for those who knew him, so that they can share their memories.

Steve has already been honoured through formal tributes and dedications. Here we are opening a new chapter – one which can offer an ongoing global tribute. Not everyone feels comfortable attempting to formalise their memories, some need time to let those memories ’stabilise’ after the sadness of November 2003.

Jean-Marc, Kaveh and myself hope that this space will encourage you to share some of your personal thoughts about Steve and the way he influenced an incredibly wide group of professionals around the world.

We welcome your reminiscences of someone who helped stimulate our visual, academic, business and social world. Please keep them to around 200 words and bear with us if it takes a while for them to be included.

Andy Pepper

Steven L Smith

Kaveh — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 14:11:34 +0000

It had been two long days of presentations on Holographic Techniques and Materials and even longer nights when I first met Steve at the Lake Forest holography symposium in 1982 he bounded onto the small stage in the lecture hall next to TJ’s optics and Holography labs and in his deep voice took everyone’s attention away from the new person they were sitting next to and brought them thru the process of computing a rainbow hologram from the top down. I mean I was blown away, and thought “hey I could do this”. You could see that everyone in the room had the same feeling after he finished. He really had a way to bring the technology thru to whatever level of audience he was engaging with.

My favorite memory of Steve was the following conference when I gave a paper on the multi-camera capture system in his session. After what I thought was a shaky presentation, I was terrified of the questions that may come my way and of course Steve was not going to let me off the hook easy as he inquired about issues of image magnification at the extreme camera positions, then smiled at me and said to the group, “well I am glad that someone just went out and did this”.

I will always cherish my times of working with Steve, the years at the Media lab collaborating with the fantastic team of students that Steve would always pull together has given me quite a standard with which to measure the ongoing years of my work. I mean that is the point, just go out and do it…

IN3D, Director Stereoscopic Products
steven.smith@inddd.com
www.inddd.com

Editor’s note – Jean-Marc Fournier

Kaveh — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 09:41:45 +0000

The memory of Professor Steve Benton has been commemorated in many magazines, scientific journals, and in the general press. Steve Benton was a teacher, an inventor, an entrepreneur and a scientist. His tremendous skill as a communicator generated numerous interactions that often led to massive cross-alliances among people in the many communities with which he was involved.

One of the communities in which Steve was extraordinarily active and astonishingly influential is the world of holography. Kaveh has proposed a new way to celebrate Steve Benton’s life and career, where anyone who knew Professor Benton could post some shared memories on this web site, under the sole condition that the writings be reviewed and accepted by the editors, i.e. yours truly and Andy Pepper.

What will come out of this sort of virtual memorial wall is obviously not clear. At the very least, this website provides a forum for people to contribute their personal memories of Steve. Moreover, this virtual memorial wall would allow friends and colleagues to recollect moments shared with Steve and perhaps reflect on some of Steve’s special personal qualities that affected all of us.

Contributions should be short, and, obviously courteous. Contributors should not attempt to use this memorial to try to frame a complete or definitive vision of Steve’s achievements.

Many documents have already contributed to celebrate Steve’s influence on science, on research, on technology, and on people. Steve himself participated in the framing of the “BentonVision” event so well organized at MIT on November 11, 2003. Steve meant this event to be a shared gift for all of us. The very essence of what should be said and remembered in this website has also been written by his wife, Jeanne Benton, in the SPIE issue of Practical Holography dedicated to Steve Benton (Proceeding vol. # 5290). Recently I spoke with Jeanne about what she thought the essence of a memorial website should reflect. “The real memorial already exists”, she said, “Steve’s students and colleagues living interesting and challenging lives in science is the best memorial Steve could have. What the website might contribute is an opportunity for the community at large to come together. Steve would have really liked that.”

Let’s keep this in mind when you submit a note for the web site.

Jean-Marc Fournier

Rania Khalaf

Kaveh — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 14:07:39 +0000

It was not until today – October 23 2005 – that I found out that Stephen had passed on. I had just met a Phillipino scientist who worked in holography, Percival Almoro, in the laundry room at the University of Stuttgart. I’d been out of the holography ‘loop’ for about 8 years. So I went back to my computer to look Stephen up and catch up with what he’s been up to in the last, well too many, years since I’d last looked. Maybe send him a note. I saw the ‘in memory’ note on his webpage.

How could that be.. Stephen had made my first semester at MIT exciting: I got to play with lasers and make holograms and it actually fulfilled a major requirement (Institute Lab Class). That was cool. Much cooler than what most other Freshmen were doing in class. He had read my first lab report at the end of the semester, which a little more engineering education later made me realize that it read more like a transcript of a live TV show, sprinkled with optics. I was so naive as to take the instructions literally: report how the lab was going – along with mishaps and excited expressions (like: “oh no!”) . I do hope it made him smile a little. He gave me my first job coz I had a knack for optics – when I couldn’t even write a single line of code. I remember filling in my timecard for my first paycheck. He was always ready with support, advice, and a smile; never a hint of hierarchy. How could he be gone, now?

How could I have missed it? It’s all over the Internet… It took a meeting between a Lebanese and Philipino in a laundry room in Southern Germany.. what are the odds . One thinks good people will live forever, and time flies.

Stephen was a great man, not just in his scientific abilities but mainly for me – a 17 year old first semester freshman, continents away from home for the first time ever, being eaten alive by MIT – he was amazing in his humanity. The world looks slightly dimmer to me now.

Software Engineer, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
rkhalaf@us.ibm.com

Jon Dark

Kaveh — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 13:52:57 +0000

I had known Steve from the mid 70’s, always chatting at SPIE meetings and such. Here and there throughout the years we’d bump into each other also. Every Xmas we exchanged best wishes. One year I remember particularly, I think it was Xmas 1999, when I revealed to him that as a child I had established a dream to be a Professor at MIT, but proprietary science and engineering development had spirited me away from the academic, and so over the years, I had envied him. He returned a letter to say that ever since he was a child, he had wanted to work on ultra exciting proprietary science and engineering projects, as a contract engineer, and so over the years, he had envied me!

I think that shared ‹grin›, across thousands of miles, was the most exceptional moment of my career. I miss the guy…

Former Chief Engineer at Holovision
Head of Cybernetics at McDonnell Douglas
Jonadark/StellarTechnologies

Steve Benton Memorial

Kaveh — Sat, 30 Jul 2005 09:29:42 +0000

On November 9th 2003, we lost one of the most prominent and popular figures in display holography, Dr Stephen Benton. Many obituaries and articles about him have been published in mainstream media. This page is the Holographer’s dedication to him. We are inviting everyone who knew Steve to contribute by sharing their most vivid or cherished memory of him. Rather than long passages, we would prefer short, succint contributions, limited to one or two paragraphs.

Although these passages should not need much editing, we are happy that two well known figures in the science and art of holography, namely Jean-Marc Fournier and Andy Pepper have agreed to act as editors for this memorial page. So please contribute, and mail your memories to bentonpage@holographer.org. Kindly remember to include your name and any afilliation.

Tung H. Jeong

Kaveh — Fri, 19 Nov 2004 10:18:13 +0000

It’s November, again. It’s a time that I recall flying to Boston with my wife to attend the Benton Vision at MIT last year and was shocked to hear in our motel of his passing a day before the tribute. The tribute was overwhelmingly well attended, but I know many more would have come had they be able to.

Now is time to remember Steve, it’s a time when many deadlines for the next Practical Holography conference are passing. A time when we would have collaborated on the conference and dealt with the many decision that have to be made. Time I had enjoyed with him by email and on the telephone.

I’ve known Steve since the day he presented his seminal paper on what was later called “rainbow” holography. He had never missed a single conference held in Lake Forest and was an enthusiastic supporter on the short practical holography courses taught before each conference.

I truly miss Steve, more than ever, both as a friend and a colleague.

Professor Emeritus, Lake Forest College
jeong@LFC.edu
www.lakeforest.edu

Vladimir Markov

Kaveh — Fri, 12 Nov 2004 10:24:50 +0000

Like many others from the holographic community I had my moments with Steve, spread in both the spatial and temporal domain as, most of the time, we met during conferences in different countries. All of them I remember well.

We first met in 1976 at the Conference on Holography in Ulyanovsk (Russia) were Steve reported on rainbow holography. Although most of my Soviet colleagues were the adherents of Denisyuk reflection holography, Steve’s impressive results prompted several groups in Russia to change their mind and move into the rainbow world. It was interesting though to see Steve’s reaction to the high-quality “Russian” holograms shown in a small exhibition at this conference. Later on when we met in Kiev, at the SPIE meeting for Holography in 1989, he confessed how much he was impressed. It was during that Kiev meeting I discovered something I didn’t know about Steve before – his profound knowledge of, and interest in, art and culture, especially ancient. During a museum tour the ‘tortured’ guide had to spend twice as much time responding to Steve’s questions and comments on the unique artefacts from the museum collection.”

Vice President; Director of Applied Optics Group
MetroLaser, Inc
www.metrolaserinc.com

Ana Maria Nicholson

Kaveh — Thu, 11 Nov 2004 11:01:08 +0000

Many of my memories of Steve are of his visits with Jeannie and the children when Peter and I were living in Long Island and Hawaii. Their children and ours were of an age, give or take a couple of years, so the visits became family affairs with picnics and games and of course, much talk about holography. I remember specially their week-long visit to our home in Hawaii where we had settled when we brought the Center for Experimental Holography to the University of Hawaii. We had a house by the beach, and the children could run free and the grownups could relax, drink wine and enjoy the tropical breezes. At that time there were some young holographers on the Island and the prospect of the great Steve Benton coming was of much interest. So we had a party for everyone involved in holography to meet him. Many came clutching precious, rather dim, 4×5 holograms and I will never forget Steve’s care and patience. He carefully looked at everyone’s work, gave encouragement and advice and listened with much sympathy to their dreams about holography.

Director, Center for the Holographic Arts, NY
holocenter@mindspring.com
www.holocenter.com

Melissa Crenshaw

Kaveh — Thu, 11 Nov 2004 10:28:45 +0000

I met Steve at the first International Conference on Holography at Lake Forest in 1982. This was a very intimidating week for me and I remember several hundred times thinking there was no way I would be able to understand this difficult medium. By the end of that week, I realized what was unfolding was a community of like minded, supportive individuals headed up by wonderful people like Benton. He was a real “good guy” the sort of guy who would sit on the lawn and have a beer with a bunch of Holo hopefuls, treating all of us equally and as if we were all PhD candidates from MIT!

My best moment to remember was running into Benton at an early SPIE conference. He looked at me and with a grin and serious tone of voice said “ah, you’re a Lifer, I can tell already”. I burst out laughing but 20 years later, I guess he was right. The colorful Benton Vision Poster from the MIT event of a year ago greets visitors to the Research facility where I work. When visitors ask about it, I get to tell them about this remarkable man. He is and will continue to be greatly missed.

Research Holographer; Ledalite Research Facility Manager
Ledalite Architectural Products
mcrenshaw@ledalite.com
www.ledalite.com