During 2014, in the year running up to the International Year of Light, New York Photonics sponsored a number of events, with sponsorship from the OPI community, to celebrate Light, Sound and Multimedia in our lives.  These events occured during the International Year of Light in 2015. Following a series of successful events in 2015,...Continue Reading

MAG Installation and City lighting improvements make Rochester shine. 2015 was the International Year of Light.  In 2014, New York Photonics was encouraging IYOL events and celebrations for the coming year. Regionally, a lot of good things came out of that effort. Some of them are touched upon here. But some things took longer to brew, like this...Continue Reading

Rochester City School District Science Teacher Diane Eagles (RCSD School #46) was inspired by the International Year of Light posters at the Rochester Airport and decided to do a photonics project with her Optics class. Eagles gave her students a working definition  of Photonics: “Photonics is the science of light: the technology of generating, controlling and detecting light waves...Continue Reading

Student volunteers from the University of Rochester Institute of Optics SPIE Student Chapter helped New York Photonics Executive Director, Tom Battley assemble and install 20 beautiful photo banners at the Greater Rochester International Airport on Friday, October 9. The banners are there to welcome visitors and exhibitors to Rochester during SPIE Optifab, held in Rochester biannually, and...Continue Reading

Cameras: Four Nikon D810 cameras Lenses:  28/f1.8 mm Exposure time: 30 seconds @ f/11 ISO 100 All external lighting was provided by nearly 1,800  volunteer participants using hand-held electronic flash units and flashlights. Additionally Profoto 7B and B1 electronic flash equipment was used. The RIT Big Shot is a nighttime community photographic project that began...Continue Reading

Rick Williams and KenLou Foundation had an idea.  This can be a very dangerous thing.  Creativity ensues.  Things get messy.  What emerged is going to be extraordinary, and it will be debuting Friday night in Eastman’s Kilbourn Hall as part of the First Niagara Fringe Festival. Sponsored by KenLou Foundation, Corning Incorporated, The Rochester Regional Photonics...Continue Reading

Students from RIT’s SPIE student chapter recently celebrated the International Year Of Light with a spontaneous audience participation event at Rochester’s Memorial Art Gallery during the opening of the 50th Finger Lakes Art Exhibition on Saturday, July 25th. RIT Doctoral student, NSF Graduate Research Fellow and SPIE Student Chapter president, Alexandra B. Artusio-Glimpse led a team of...Continue Reading

In 2014 NYPhotonics began working on (or instigating) a number of projects for the International Year of Light in Rochester.  A broad view looks like this: Rochester Museum & Science Center IYOL2015 Advisory Committee OPI Company Tours in May 2015 Illuminations, a permanent exhibition of interactive OPI science demonstrations previewing now in the Patricia Hale Gallery...Continue Reading

CUBES: A VISUAL EXPLORATION OF POSSIBILITY Cubes uses technology developed by Alexander Green and Symmetry Labs, a San Francisco-based technology and design company founded by Alexander Green and Trip Vest. Cubes has been featured on the Discovery Channel, the Esquire network, and at the Treasure Island Music Festival. Cubes is presented in Rochester in partnership...Continue Reading

Light behaves both as a particle and as a wave. Since the days of Einstein, scientists have been trying to directly observe both of these aspects of light at the same time. Now, scientists at EPFL have succeeded in capturing the first-ever snapshot of this dual behavior. Quantum mechanics tells us that light can behave...Continue Reading