Tech Directions - January 2009 - (Page 14) Surprising Beauty in Technical Photography By Andrew Davidhazy andpph@rit.edu HE Imaging and Photographic Technology area, in which I teach, is an applications- and technology-oriented photography program designed to prepare students for work in technical, corporate, industrial, and scientific environments. A while ago, I received an e-mail message from an editor who had found my web site and thought I might have some photographs that could be applicable to an article about a theory that has the world of science abuzz: string theory. She wanted to obtain photographs of vibrating strings or rubber bands or related items. While I did not have anything specific to that immediately available, I asked her to give me a day or so to come up with some photos. The project would involve making images that have a scientific or technical application, which can eventually also be appreciated for their intrinsic creative interpretation. The concept of producing and studying vibrations is part of standard courses in physics. Making photographs of standing waves and Andrew Davidhazy is a professor of imaging and photographic technology, School of Photo Arts and Sciences, Rochester (NY) Institute of Technology. His program’s web address is imaging.rit.edu. T characterizing the forces at work in such situations is common practice. The availability of digital cameras makes photographing wave motions a practical way to extend the scope of these experiments. I thought that Tech Directions readers might be interested in how I addressed the editor’s request—and in the resulting photos. Getting the Shots As I was speaking with the editor, I had already pre-visualized what the photographs might be like and how I would make them, but I had no idea what they would eventually turn out to be. The fact I had a digital camera made it possible to check out my ideas in short order. Since the request was for an image that would show strings moving in odd ways and vibrating, this reminded me of strings in musical instruments where a taut string is held on both ends and plucked in the middle to produce sound waves. I also remembered, perhaps from a physics class, that I could also simply hold one end and make the other end move up and down. If done properly, this would induce a wave-like motion on the string that under some conditions would produce a standing wave. All this started me thinking about other ways to induce vibrations in a string, and I built a setup in which I attached one end of a string to a fastener located on the edge of a rotating disc driven by a small electric motor whose speed could be varied by changing, with a rheostat, the voltage driving the motor. I attached a small weight to the other, free, end of the string, letting gravity pull the string down. Photo 1—The basic setup 14 techdirections ◆ JANUARY 2009 http://imaging.rit.edu
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