During the first week of June, I was in San Antonio, Texas for the Society for Information Display's annual trade show. This is typically a techie show where you can find all the latest innovations in display technology, i.e. LCD screens for mobile phones, TVs & laptops; big plasma TVs; and newer technologies, like Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) and e-paper.  This year's show did not disappoint in that area, but there was also something new to be found on the show floor and in the technical symposiums - new lighting technology for a more sustainable world.

You are probably wondering what lamps have to do with laptop screens, right? It turns out that the organic layers you use to make an OLED for a TV can be used to make a flat "light bulb." This new "light bulb" is really a solid state light source that can greatly reduce the amount of electricity needed to provide the world's lighting and eliminate certain heavy metals, like mercury, from the light fixtures in our homes and workplaces.  You can see a video of the OLED light panels Kodak demonstrated at Display Week on YouTube:



RANDOM TRIVIA:  Even though Kodak is headquartered in Rochester, NY, we found our very own Kodak Building in San Antonio.
 


Thanks to our intrepid scientist, Tom Pawlik, we can fill in that question mark! Kodak was part of the International Exposition HemisFair in 1968, whose theme was to celebrate man's desire to go higher and farther in his constant search for achievements.



To that end, the 622-foot Tower of the Americas was constructed in HemisFair Park and was the tallest observation tower in the Western Hemisphere, at the time.
 

Kodak has returned to San Antonio, 41 years later, to demonstrate some our latest achievements. Just as San Antonio's HemisFair Park has evolved into the tourist-mecca that is the Riverwalk, Kodak has progressed from photography to new technologies for lighting and displays.
 

I have always been a big fan of National Geographic Magazine, so it was a big thrill for me when I was invited to speak last Tuesday week at an event commemorating the release of their latest book, National Geographic Image Collection.  This book is a magnificent collection of famous and never-before-released photos from the extensive photo archives of the National Geographic Society, which dates back over 100 years. This speaking event was billed as the "insider's look" at the making of the book.  I, of course, had nothing to do with the making of this book, but the other people also speaking certainly were.  They included the insightful Maura Mulvihill, who is the director of the Image Collection and helped select the images for the book from over 11 million possible images, plus a set of world famous photographers whose work appears in in its pages.  David Doubilet, Maria Stenzel, Chris Johns and William Allard all spoke about their work and what it means to them.  To top it off, Kodak CEO Antonio Perez started the evening off by sharing some of the common history that National Geographics and Kodak have together. He even held up a copy of the first advertisement that Kodak had in the magazine from the year 1909.



    The event was attended by several hundred photographers in their auditorium at the National Geographic's building on M street in Washington DC.  I was scheduled to be the last speaker of the evening and you might expect that I would have spent the evening nervously waiting my turn.  That was not the case however because all of the speakers before me had such interesting and compelling narratives about their photographs that I lost all sense of anticipation and got lost in their stories.  What wonderful photos of the mysterious polar ice cap, elephants sleeping on a moonlit African plain, and elusive snow leopards on rocky cliffs. There were stories of how to get a white shark to "pose" for that perfect shot (secret: don't get too close!) and the capturing of desert landscape scenes at dusk.



    My small part in all this was to talk about the invention of how I invented the digital camera here at Kodak and the contribution that digital imaging has made to photography. The real testimony, of course, is found in the pages of this book and the amazing images made possible by digital.

Common to all of the photographers who spoke was their passion for the medium and its power to express the wonders of our world.  It was a magical evening and I will not soon forget the stories I heard or the people I met. It was a great reminder that photography is really at its best when the art and science of the discipline come together in the hands of passionate storytellers. I hope everyone gets a chance to experience this wonderful collection of photos from National Geographic.

photo from GETTY

Check out Jessica Alba using a Kodak M381 to snap pictures of photorapher Mark Liddell at Monday night's Los Angeles launch of Mark's book, Exposed: 10 Years in Hollywood. Proceeds from the book will go directly to two fantastic charities  - the Jenesse Center and the Trevor Project.

The event was hosted by Jessica Alba at the famed Sowden House designed by Lloyd Wright, son of Frank Lloyd Wright, and Kodak was a part of the book launch event. Kodak S730 Digital Frames were pre-loaded with Mark's famous images and placed in each room in the house while other Kodak products were available for guests to try out.