In Part 1 of my Ann Arbor-Rochester travelogue, I described my trip last weekend to Rochester, NY, for the 2010 Technology of Applied Photography and Imaging workshop. This is the second of two parts, describing my experience there.
Day 2 of the workshop was Saturday, and it started off with Andrew Davidhazy talking about high-speed photography. Here’s a shot of him looking a bit mad-scientist as he sets up one of the shots:
![IMG_4530 IMG_4530](http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1269/4609984957_4e1ba887b1.jpg)
Andrew is known for his high-speed photography work. In the shots below, he showed us how he accomplishes some of the shots he’s famous for. The balloon-pop photo was done with an external flash, set to its lowest power (and thus its shortest flash duration) in a completely dark room. The flash gets triggered by a microphone, which sends out a trigger voltage when the balloon loudly pops.
![IMG_4557 IMG_4557](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3502/4609988279_c213427411.jpg)
I snagged this shot on the first balloon pop attempt!
![IMG_4558 IMG_4558](http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1217/4610595150_986f78aca6.jpg)
In the afternoon, we were treated to a 90-minute tour-de-force of color theory with Glenn Miller.
![IMG_4578 IMG_4578](http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1280/4609990025_a0549ca62c.jpg)
Finally, Saturday’s sessions concluded with Andrew Davidhazy talking about and demonstrating strip camera photography. He modified a Canon AE-1 film camera with the imaging electronics from a small scanner, and created a camera that takes strip photos, also called roll-out photos. Here’s the apparatus:
![IMG_4597 IMG_4597](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3417/4610639406_f8c2b05629.jpg)
Here’s a photo Andrew took of me with his DIY strip camera. To make this work, I had to stand on a heavy-duty turntable and slowly rotate, as the camera scanned one line at a time.
![rollout-vanloo](https://www.chromedecay.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/rollout-vanloo-300x55.jpg)
Day 3 was Sunday, and it started with a wrap-up session. Here’s Herschel Mair, an incredibly knowledgeable and talented photographer who is currently based in Oman:
![RIT, Day 3 RIT, Day 3](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4058/4625053887_7af9ef3dc4.jpg)
After our wrapup session and lunch, we headed into downtown Rochester to visit the George Eastman House, home of George Eastman, who founded Eastman Kodak. Here’s a view along East Avenue, the street that the museum is on:
![RIT, Day 3 RIT, Day 3](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4035/4625054851_e981dcb233.jpg)
George Eastman House plaque:
![RIT, Day 3 RIT, Day 3](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4001/4625055565_94f3b45162.jpg)
One of the first exhibits in the museum was an overview of historically significant photos and photography equipment. One that struck me was the photo of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima during World War II. I’ve been reading a lot of WWII history over the last few years, so this was especially meaningful.
![RIT, Day 3 RIT, Day 3](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4056/4625662108_ff34960abc.jpg)
One of the exhibits I enjoyed the most was “Persistent Shadow”, a showing of photographic negatives through the history of photography. This quote by Ansel Adams sums it up: ” The negative is the equivalent of the composer’s score and the print is the performance”.
![RIT, Day 3 RIT, Day 3](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4071/4625662394_28416c0e96.jpg)
It was an interesting experience being immersed in so much film-based photography this weekend, and this exhibit certainly fed into that. I’ve shot strictly digital for so long that the idea of shooting film is almost foreign to me (though I do have a few film-based projects in the concept stage for upcoming 52 things projects).
After the museum, it was time to hit the road again.
![RIT, Day 3 RIT, Day 3](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4035/4625058717_3c64175bd3.jpg)
I stopped in Cleveland long enough to snap a few shots of a lovely sunset over Lake Ontario (and gloat about the recent Boston Celtics win over the Cleveland Cavaliers).
![RIT, Day 3 RIT, Day 3](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3007/4625059335_14ab0bdde9.jpg)
As the sun slowly sunk below the clouds and hills, a beautiful orange light shone across the highway, and I couldn’t resist snapping a few shots as I sped toward home…
![RIT, Day 3 RIT, Day 3](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4048/4625665736_32659c0b1d.jpg)