Dr. Jerry Saxon, Physicist & Photographer
___Jerry Saxon is a retired physics and astronomy professor. He earned a B.S. degree in Physics at M.I.T. and a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, also in Physics. He graduated with honors and was the first person to make side-band Fresnel holograms with electrons.
In 1992, Dr. Saxon discovered that he had a passion for nature photography. An avid nature lover, he then spent three years photographing a local nature preserve – which evolved into Walden Revisited, a dynamic presentation of slides combined with poetic quotations from Thoreau’s Walden and music from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. He also converted the slides to a video presentation, which he has given to the Chicago Sierra Club, the Audubon Club, and over forty other groups. After receiving a grant to study Kirlian photography, he built a device that used electricity instead of light and proceeded to take creative images in brilliant false colors surrounded by a bright white “aura.” His Kirlian photographs were shown in galleries in Chicago and Florida. He was invited to speak on The Art of Kirlian Photography at the International Kirlian Photography Association in New York. Motivated by a love for science and photography, he began using a technique called Polarized Light Photomicroscopy. Attaching his camera body to the column of a microscope, he took uniquely beautiful pictures of two dimensional crystals, bridging the gap between science and art. Later, he was inspired by the work of Eliot Porter, the celebrated photographer who also began his career as a scientist. Like Eliot, Jerry became fascinated with the subtleties in nature. Some of his images can be viewed on the Nature’s Chaos link of his website. |
Continued...
A natural speaker and world traveler, Jerry has presented over 200 travelogues on Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, Israel, Costa Rica, Norway, Italy, France, New Zealand, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Mediterranean, and twenty five of the most beautiful U.S. National Parks. He exhibited a contest-winning photograph at the prestigious Chicago Museum of Science and Industry for six months; has been published six times in the Chicago Tribune’s weekly “Midwest Portrait” contest; won 1st Prize in Kodak’s annual Best Photo of Chicago contest ( a one week all expense trip for two to Hawaii); received 1st Prize in the black and white abstract category of Sierra Magazine’s annual photo contest; wrote articles for national magazines on Kirlian photography and polarized light photomicroscopy; was invited to present a paper on photography and art to the National Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers in New Orleans. Asked which of these accolades was his most memorable, he replies without hesitation. His favorite presentation was to an enthusiastic class of gifted 5th graders at the Orchard School in Skokie, Illinois. Dr. Saxon currently resides in Florida and divides his time between photography, writing and dancing. His first book, Life is But A Dream, was published in 2011. To contact Jerry, click here.
|
_Copyright 2012 Jerry Saxon