Photonics for a Better World

People often like to separate culture, art, photonics, and optics as completely separate fields. However, when we combine the four fields we can capture beauty that seems so surreal. Light plays a vital role accentuating hidden beauties, illuminating spirits, minds, and hearts in every culture. The advancements made in modern light technology has made it possible to highlight architecture, people, and objects. In the photo above John Danrev Bolus , has captured a “Night of Reflections” at the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. Bolus is one of 32 contestants for the People’s Choice Award competition in the SPIE International Year of Light Photo Contest . Judges have already chosen three winners, but now it's your turn to choose one more. SPIE is providing a prize of US $500 to the People's Choice winner. Online voting continues through 15 August . Bolus is very passionate about his work and is proud to be representing his home country, the Philippines, as a finalist for th...

Bernardo Cesare ’s photo (above) displays granulite rock under a microscope. The picture resembles a piece of stained glass window through sunlight, but it’s just a thin slice of rock 0.03 mm in thickness and 5 mm in size. The rock’s beautiful "interference colors" derive from the interaction of polarized light with the crystalline matter. Cesare is one of 32 contestants for the People’s Choice Award competition in the SPIE International Year of Light Photo Contest. Judges have already chosen three winners, but now it's your turn to choose. SPIE is providing a prize of US $500 to the People's Choice winner. Online voting continues through 15 August. This blog post features entries illustrating science and technology, including Cesare's, above, and four others, below. Future posts will showcase other entries -- follow the blog to catch them all. Of his work, Cesare says on the National History Museum of London website,“My aim is to reveal the ...

Show us your photonics -- that’s what the SPIE Professional magazine staff are asking of photographers around the world. Light, water, camera, action: Indirect light in a darkened aquarium highlights anatomical detail in a tank of swimming jellyfish. (Nikon D40, Nikon AF-S DX Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G lens, ISO 1600) Winning photos showing the use of light and light-based technologies in daily life will win cash prizes and cover placement in an issue of SPIE Professional , published by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics . The SPIE International Year of Light 2015 Photo Contest is part of the society's observance of the United Nations-declared International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies in 2015 (IYL2015). IYL2015 is a celebration of the crosscutting discipline of science that has revolutionized medicine, astronomy, and clean energy and opened up international communication via the Internet, and that continues to be central to ...