Editor's note Jean-Marc Fournier 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. Editor's note Andy Pepper 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. Name: Tung H. Jeong Date: 19/11/04 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 Name: Vladimir Markov Date: 12/11/04 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 Name: Melissa Crenshaw Date: 11/11/04 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 Name: Bill Molteni Date: 09/11/04 Steve's determined, focused loyalty to holography, and 3D in general has been a great inspiration as well as a career for me, and I'm sure many others. His passing leaves a massive 3D hole in my universe. Dupont Research Associate www.dupontauthentication.com Name: Ana Maria Nicholson Date: 08/11/04 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, 4x5 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 Name: John Perry Date: 08/11/04 I was most fond of Steve's poetic, if sometimes irreverent way with words. My library of Stevisms is undoubtedly smaller than many, but here are a few I remember. 20 years ago, as I was coaxing meter square holograms from a laser with no etalon, he shook his head and predicted "someday you'll take the argon plunge." You could practically feel the wind when Steve burst into the SPIE exhibition corridor 10 years ago, fresh from the airport. His opening remark - "Looks like we're all here. Hide the women and children!" A few years before that, he and I were aggravating over a particularly bad decision we had somehow conspired to make. His conclusion, with a chuckle - "We all wear fool's shoes now and then." I'll admit, I felt much better. President, Holographics North, Inc jp@holonorth.com www.holonorth.com Name: Jonathan Ross Date: 05/11/04 I first met Steve Benton in 1978, shortly after becoming involved with holography. I was on a photoshoot for Multiplex-style holograms and had been persuaded that it would make an amusing image if I shaved off half my beard (I think I had probably grown it after seeing a picture of Steve and deciding that it was the cool holographer's look). As it happened, Steve was in London at the time and turned up at the studio, which was in the bowels of Goldsmith's College. I was despatched to meet him at the main gate and the look of astonishment on his face at being greeted by a half-bearded Englishman was worth quite a lot. Whenever we met subsequently there would always be an exchange of facial hair jokes. Art dealer/collector jross@gallery286.com www.holonet.khm.de/jross Name: Graham Saxby Date: 05/11/04 One thing Steve and I shared was a fondness for English bitter ale. On one occasion when we were both in Bath and met at the RPS headquarters, we spent a long and happy afternoon in the nearby Moon and Sixpence engaged in a lengthy discussion, aided by generous helpings of this excellent fluid, of his new method for making one-step rainbow holograms. I made extensive notes and Steve drew numerous diagrams. When I checked these the following morning they were uniformly unintelligible... Author, holographer grahamsaxby@sagainternet.co.uk Name: Kaveh Bazargan Date: 05/11/04 I first met Steve Benton in 1979, on my first trip to the US. Steve was one of the 'gods' of holography, and I went to pay homage at the Polaroid labs. I was a student, and quite nervous about meeting him. I remember saying to him that I would really like to contribute to display holography but felt I was so far behind the likes of him and Nick Phillips. His reaction was to trivialize what he had achieved, and said that there were many avenues of research, so there will always be something around the corner. This support from him was a major boost to my confidence and I am always grateful to him for 'holding my hand' at that early stage. Editor kaveh@holographer.org www.holographer.org Name: Andy Pepper Date: 05/11/04 Steve came to visit us in Nottingham on one of his numerous trips to the UK. We played tourist, drank beer in the oldest pub in the world, looked at art (Henry Moore at Nottingham Castle), explored cafés and spent an afternoon chatting about a great deal, and very little about holography. While dinner was being prepared Steve spent some time with my two daughters. They were fascinated by him. When we sat down to eat it transpired that he had taught them a rhyme which, strangely, had something to do with Paris and underpants. They thought this was hilarious and recited it for most of the evening. Last year, when he died, I was talking about his work and mentioned what an incredible impact he had made. Both kids looked surprised and commented, “Do you mean we had someone famous in our house?” For them he was another visitor, a 'nice guy' who made them laugh and feel comfortable. Humility is difficult to maintain when you have achieved so much. Steve did. Artist mail@apepper.com www.apepper.com Name: Ray Kostuk Date: 05/11/04 I first met Steve in 1986 at the OSA topical meeting on holography in Hawaii. I was in the process of finishing my graduate degree and remember being a bit nervous about my presentation. Steve was one of the organizers and made me feel right at home inviting me to participate in many of the conference discussions and introducing me to many of the legendary figures in holography. This was typical of Steve who always tried to make you feel welcome and a part of things. Throughout the years he worked hard to strike a balance between the many diverse groups that make up the holography community and was one of the true statesmen of our field. I was deeply shocked to learn of his illness and passing and will greatly miss his guidance and friendship. Professor, University of Arizona kostuk@ece.arizona.edu www.optics.arizona.edu/Faculty/Resumes/Kostuk.htm Name: Margaret Benyon Date: 05/11/04 To me, Steve was an inspirational scientist, larger than life, but he was also a real, dear friend who had welcomed me into his family life and home. The memories that come flooding back on the anniversary of his death are personal, painful, precious, and not to be shared with the world at large, but there is a "Eureka moment" from almost a quarter of a century ago that I would like to share.   It happened when we were having a meal – Steve, Jeannie and myself. It was dark, and there were some elegant Boston globe lights just outside the window of the restaurant. My working session at Polaroid had come to an end, and we were talking about our collaborative project (Black Rainbow, White Rainbow), when his face lit up like a little boy and he said something like: "we could make more of these". Jeannie leant towards him with such a look of tenderness on her face and I was moved too. It dawned on me then that he actively enjoyed the process of making art, and found it exciting. It could be one of the reasons why he was so generous and helpful towards artists, that he could be an artist himself (although he'd probably hate me for saying this!). Artist benyon@holography.demon.co.uk www.holography.demon.co.uk Name: Jon Dark Date: 08/10/05 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 Name: Rania Khalaf Date: 04/11/05 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 Name: Steven L Smith Date: 17/11/05 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   All Articles | Announce | Opinion | Technique | Review | Materials | Report | Optics | Tutorial Register | Latest Additions | About Us | Feedback | Write for Us | Links | Contact